the story: CHAPTER 3
lab notes
Artist sketch: Experiencing CONTACT
AZIMUTH LAB, NOTES
August 27, 2040
GEIGER forced too much untested bleeding-edge technology into the device. User deaths are spiking.
Our initial intent was to create a way to connect people sheltering in the Block Cities while providing filtering from environmental contaminants. GEIGER leveraged the situation to run prolonged tests on users, harvesting endless lakes of raw BioData.
What we’ve learned from the deaths is that the onboard BioFeedback Engine in the CONTACT is overcorrecting users’ emotional distress. The more frightened or depressed someone becomes, the stronger the BioFeedback kicks in, which eventually leads to users “powering down.”
So now we have to fix what we started. GEIGER has sent us up to an off-the-grid lab facility in the Azimuth Mountains to work out the solution. Fast.
AZIMUTH LAB, NOTES
September 7, 2040
To unwind side effects of the CONTACT, my twin sister and I focused our research on using analog audio signals to repair brain function. The results prove the thesis: deep listening heals.
Brain scans reveal regenerated cognitive function and improved emotional profiles in test subjects after short periods of exposure. However, when applied outside of the CONTACT in an omnidirectional sphere, we discovered something we weren’t even looking for.
Hope.
The best way to describe the effect of being inside an analog array is a physical bubble of sound. There is shape, there is dimension, and when you cross the threshold you feel the borders of your body fall away. You’re expanding and overlapping with the universe with each breath.
My sister calls it a wormhole. But the working name is OMNI.
Lab schematic: Early stage diagram of OMNI array
(Open-cluster Musical Navigation Interface)
Artist sketch: Visuals from Edge™ processing visor onboard CONTACT
AZIMUTH LAB
September 13, 2040
We presented a near-term solution to the Board.
Despite our pleas to dial down the unmitigated and invasive technologies in the CONTACT, the board had zero interest in disrupting earnings from a wildly successful product. The earth has been hollowed out but it’s still a money world.
GEIGER pushed a firmware update to every CONTACT device in the settlements. Before, users were living in augmented reality, blending visualizations with the world outside. After the update, the onboard visualization engines in each and every hood were processing more imagery than ever before.
We knew that this was an indicator of increased dependence on the generated world and even though fewer people were dying, the neural signals for terror were spiking off the charts.
The CONTACT was lulling users into complacency to take them farther away from the husk of the earth that lay right beyond their visors.
