The White Wall - Part 4 (Final)

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Personal Experimental Commentary: on SDF CuDTFWADD-20140516

Now that most of the staff have finally gone home, I can collect my thoughts properly. With everyone crooning around me like a bison stuck in a barbed wire fence, I couldn’t do anything much less investigate what had happened. Such a hub-bub about equipment malfunction.

The chamber recorders are useless – monitoring devices outside the chamber were inoperable, screens just a mess of cracked glass with a crown of seared plastic. Inside they are black with char and stink of ozone. Thankfully, by the time I had access inside the fans and air filters had cleared out the worrisome traces of arsenic the sensors had detected so I needn’t any cumbersome respirators. I was however glad I wore safety shoes – the whole floor is littered glass from burst bulbs. Waving the cone of the flashlight over them reminds me of looking at the lawn on a winter night. Fingers of ice coiled around glass blades. The crunch underfoot is nowhere near as satisfying though.

The whole room has a horrible reek to it though. Like a garbage disposal. A quick glance yields the shocking answer though; the entire back panel is warped and caked with gore and loose skin. Mismatched vicersa all interwoven. It should come as no surprise; I have seen the way WADD’s peel away flesh and ionize bone – but so much of it. Oxidized patches of yellow and green stain the metallic wall – a mosaic of spilled stomach acid and dying enzymes. I momentarily wish I had brought the respirator.

Shockingly, the entire back panel is warped and bent in odd curves and sweeping angles. Swallowing my pride and cursing my sense of smell, I got a closer look. A cake of dried blood blooms out around each point the wall punctures the vacuum seal in the back. They form hideous flowers where semi-coagulated nectar drizzles down onto the floor where it pools in revolting looking puddles. Wreathed portions of rust extend out behind the broken glass. In other places the mass has slumped off, pushing against the glass to form ghastly mounds. Like a skinless garden in an aquarium, my flashlight penetrates the thin films and the red scattering of light illuminates the alien surface of the distorted mass behind. A crisscross of circulatory systems is visible in some parts. Like vines on a wall. Oddly beautiful, but my nose cannot endure the stink of self-digesting meat, and I have to take a moment outside to recover.

With no one around relaxation comes easily in the form of nicotine. The cake of gore implies the electrification of the backpanel wasn’t even active during the incident, so it must have deformed during the initial scan. We don’t even have an MSDS for the stuff, and after digging back at some old papers I finally found something on the stuff. 1300 Kelvin is hot! Far too hot actually. The idea that a basic WADD operation could take a 40 square foot sheet from sub-zero temperatures to its melting point is absurd.

While sitting there reading through material properties I feel a terrible itching sensation along my ankle. Momentarily I dread I might have nicked myself on a piece of glass. A sliced artery or tendon? Of course this would happen after everyone had gone home. Hurriedly hiking my leg up I look around along my heel and foot but there is nothing. No dried clumps of bloody fur. No jagged shards ejected from my flesh. The itching feeling is present though ; and fearing slivers wedged against my pores I bite my lip to resist scratching. Fumbling around on my desk a small magnifying glass affords me more precision ; although what I discover is more shocking than all the glass works I have ever seen.

Microfauna. Truly, tiny microfauna. Clinging in spaces to the base of furstrands. Blinded by the intensity of my lamp light blasting down onto them. The revelation brings with it an intense feeling of revulsion and violation. How had they gotten here? Was this the only localized point of infection? My urge to itch and smear them into oblivion is tempted by the disquieting sickening feeling that wells in the back of my throat. What sort of horrible parasites did they have. I momentarily glance over at the tall white cylinder by the sick; the base bath. I weigh whether I can get it onto the floor with spilling it all over myself. Is the surely carcinogenic mixture of metal oxides and corroded polymers sloshing inside is worth the risk of plunging my foot in to clean it?

I shudder at the thought of it and redirect my gaze down to the little vermin scattered along the fur of my ankle. Grabbing a pair of tweezers and a nearby scintillation vial, I carefully work to remove them, like fleas. A sense of embarrassment momentarily overcomes my disgust. They are easier to remove than bloodsuckers of similar scale. A few of them burst and break from the pressure of the steel alone. The tiny dabs of body fluids they afford make it easier to collect the others though. Sticky edges work wonders.
After a while I have removed about twenty. If there anymore I cannot find or feel them, though the thought alone makes my skin crawl. Examining these specimens under a local light microscope though, only deepens the sensation. I recognize some of these specimens; the unusual colouration of a teal lapine sticks out sharply, as does the alien hues of a pink highlighted skunk. These were part of the sample from earlier today! But so small. Millimeters? I roll the vial between my finger pads and they scramble and tumble along the glass, victim to the slope of the surface.

A glance at the darkened chamber makes me shudder. Reduction beyond significance – merely itches felt under a canopy of fur. I momentarily am entranced by the possibility of it alone; their DNA must be a cancerous soup of coils and ribbons. The energies involved should have ripped holes in their cells and unwound their organs. The fact that they remain functional even hours after the event is a startling monument the tenacity of cells to struggle onward. A part of me wants to put a droplet of sugar water down near them and see how long they manage to survive for.

But a longitudinal study would take a while. It could be a week at least before all of them succumb to the inherent radiation poisoning. Setting up a protective environment would be tricky. The vial tipping over would probably introduce sufficient force to shatter their bones. And then she would have to set up a control… no way to repeat this with the equipment ruined. And then they would have to revise the operational parameters for WADD devices to reach this range. It was hard enough getting people to agree on a standard minimum size already. Ooh and now safety requirements for nanofauna ?

No no no! It wouldn’t do. It would be much easier to just get rid of them. Having already drafted a letter to the director explaining the loss of three dozen people due to settings malfunctions, it would be a damn shame to waste all that effort. Although it would be simple to just pour them out and let the impact end them, they were light enough to be carried on air currents no doubt. Inhalation hazard microfauna. The thought wrought shudder.

As that first light dwindled down, I mused over how to dispose of these parasites. It wouldn’t do to just dunk them in water; the surface tension would probably carry a few off. Dropping acid in would be interesting, but the sizzle they would produce was hardly worth the effort of putting on gloves. I mused on dropping the cigarette butt into the vial and letting the head over take them, but the thought of the smoke brought on an entire different idea that I found vastly more entertaining.

Lighting up a second cigarette, I carefully poured the vials contents into my palm. I couldn’t even feel them until they started to move – and even then, I had to be staring right at them under the magnifying glass to even register the feeling as non-normal. They’d been so keen on exploring my fur, so I suppose I really should return to them to their natural habitat. The vial vanished into the glass waste with a satisfying crinkle as I stood up and inhaled from the cigarette deeply. I could feel the fibrous tendrils of that harsh inhale scratch at the sides of my throat and back of my tongue. The irritation and burning as it swelled in my lungs paled in comparison to what my unwelcome guests would be witness to. Holding that smoke, I lifted my paw, and exhaled with the utmost grins of satisfaction a deep, cascading White Wall....

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All Colorado Facility WADD and WACU Devices down for Maintenance
From: Claudius Sepidodia < CSepidod@g.zakuratech.com>
To: ZTstaff-WADDClear[at]lists.Zakuratech.com
CC: POdoco, ABrown33, DCandy, FShortp2, SWurst, TMerchan, SDFlutt

Owing to another WADD incident on Floor 7, all machines are being taken down for maintenance effective immediately. Additionally data editing privileges will now be restricted to system admins and a new training module on valid experimental parameters will be made available and mandatory for machine access to be restored.

We additionally would like to remind users not to share user account info. Not even between group members. Using another users account is a violation of safety policy and will result in a termination of access privileges.

Claudius Sepidodia
Site Director of ZT Colorado,
Prunus Labs 450

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Artwork by  Ovens
Individual Characters credited in previous pictures.