Post by dictatorputski on Jun 19, 2023 21:59:25 GMT
INIS Deepsect, Wing 4, Experimental weapons testing facility
A Silence hung in the air. One might expect an absence of sound when sitting in an empty room hundreds of metres under the surface of a planet, but this room was usually a lot busier. Project Kaolin had been in progress for months, and had reached a dead end, graviton weapons were hard to make reality even with Ishual's help as it turned out. So much adaptation and refinement and yet the only progress they'd made was towards improving the test range's structural integrity against intense gravitational disturbance...which one could argue is a helpful form of development in and of itself. And though despite this, interest for the project had begun to waiver; out of an initial team of 900, only 50 researchers remained on the project. They left because of health and safety concerns, lack of faith, and a few because of those new opportunities in that Corona place. The lights were dimmed, most the terminals switched off and all 10 people working in the test range with the newest prototype had gone home for the night now...
But not Vaslan, not now, not when they were so goddamn close.
The intrepid bronze band researcher had struggled the whole day, and he'd keep struggling until the prototype fired. It's refusal to do so with the safety measures they had in place was a matter of de-saturation, everyone recognised that, but without those numerous failsafe's the plasma containment bubble always seemed to fail and they'd have to wait another week for the range to be rebuilt.
"12 nanometres?" He glanced at his notes, lying on the mobile workbench beside him.
"12 nanometres." The repetition was met by no hesitation as he dived insulated gloved hands into the innards of the machine in front of him. Fingers danced past wires, conduits and something likely radioactive before reaching a screwdriver locked into an adjustment pin, which he twisted with a precision unheard of from someone covered in so much sweat. He pulled out the tool, and moved his head close to the open access panel, keeping it open with an impatiently tapping palm. Somewhere beyond the cable busses he could make out the cowlings for the large circular array of magnets that funnelled plasma into the (hopefully) mathematically perfect shape to contain the active graviton packet generated by the massive generator behind it.
"Only 6 more left.....ughh fuck."
His gloves covered his face for a moment as he backed up, aiming to look at the prototype in its whole. For some reason, looking at the project as a whole gave some semblance of motivation; not one out of pride or accomplishment, but out of pure arrogant stubbornness that the stupid thing looked so complex and expensive, and it was, yet it wouldn't even fire. If he could even make a remnant of plasma exit the muzzle end he'd count that as a success for the night.
The researcher, and he supposed now engineer, reached out behind himself and grabbed a cup, the black synthetic coffee that he usually got was a lifeline for his mission, as it was for so many others. The machine was impressive, with its countless umbilical cables, prefabs and sensor equipment all shiny and chrome, awaiting to be fed power once more just so it can die out again and be thoroughly cursed at...again. He took a long, deep sip of his coffee, and the intricate stainless steel and modular rigs began to blur at the edges. His throat burned, his tongue burned, his lungs burned, he stumbled and his eyes drifted at what he just ingested.
It was a can. 'E-P5411 PAINT THINNER'
His legs wobbled under his own weight as he coughed again.
"..wrWhy..theffuck...did ii...even brinng thi-"
Lungs pushed out a wheeze as the floor raced to meet his face.
Consciousness is a strange thing. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't, sometimes you're somewhere in-between. For a few moments, Vaslan felt as if he was experiencing a superposition of all three states, his whole perception fighting itself, squabbling over what is and isn't real as the world popped and faded and blurred back into recognition. He groaned, barely able to open his eyes at first, he noticed he was staring straight at a lamp on the workbench...and that there were a lot more tools beneath it than he last remembered. On the topic of remembering though, he remembered to remember what he could. He was still at the lab, as he was, and he was working on a prototype, and then his...coffee...
His thoughts immediately switched to thankfulness that he was even alive, he'd no idea what the side effects of drinking laboratory-grade paint-thinner would be in the first place, but he assumed it wasn't fit for consumption considering he'd just woke from some sort of coma, and still couldn't feel the majority of his body. With a great effort, he twisted his neck toward a digital clock on the wall, it was as if his body was failing to gain any form of momentum and was buffering his every action and thought. A slow blink cleared his vision enough to see that it had been 12 hours...Of course it was a Friday...or well it was Saturday now. Another groan, this one was far more annoyed, mostly at the prospect that he'd have to walk to the infirmary and so he'd start to get up from the stool he was slumped on but realise he couldn't.
Though the feeling was only barely coming back to it, he could tell and soon see that his arm was jammed inside the machine. He pulled, nothing. he pulled again, harder, nothing, no movement. The panic he began to feel was enough to kick the chemicals into his brain that would begin to give him proper cognisance once more.
"Oh-...Oh shit what did I do, what did I do oh god the team are gonna kill me fuckfuckfuck."
Despite his worries, he still ordained to jiggle and yank his arm about. It was in there good, but he could feel something...some sort of latch his wrist was jammed against. He thought for but a moment, readjusted his position and pulled again.
CLUNK
He was free. He yanked his limb out and gave his forearm a good look; it seemed...ok, if a little bruised, not that he could feel it at least. Though that quickly became the least of his concerns; his pupils dilating at the familiar whine of the graviton field manipulation transformers filling the formerly silent firing range. The rising sound was equivalent to klaxons and so he'd run, or at least try to. His legs failed to carry him at the same speed his thoughts raced toward the door, and as soon as they began moving, his arm refused to follow. He panicked further, his vision turning toward the source of the problem. He wasn't stuck, his arm was caught in a field. Amongst the countless loud thoughts passing through Vaslan's head, the fact that the prototype had already reached such dangerous levels of graviton density was amongst the more puzzling ones.
Gravity pulled his arm toward the gaping access hatch. He grabbed his arm and pulled at it but it was like trying to pull a tiger that gets perpetually heavier by its tail, harder and harder to pull against until the moment it begins to pull ones self. Within a matter of seconds, his shoes failed to grip the pads on the floor and his arm sped toward the hatch, toward the containment chamber deeper in the machine. The struggle didn't stop, but it still created more problems; first of all, the access door swung closed, the weight broke something - this time he felt it.
His shouts and screams were drowned out by the sounds of active machinery, charging capacitors, spooling motors and it would keep getting worse, filling his ears like fire until it came to a whining crescendo.
The problem switched, gravity went from pulling to pushing within an instant. He was pushed back, his arm was pushed off, and the hatch, which had tough hinges mounted to an under-engineered machine frame, quickly followed him, and his eye socket halfway toward flying past him and hitting the opposite wall. Pain didn't seem to be a problem, in fact his whole body didn't seem to feel - at all, as the vision from his remaining eye faded away at the sight of a bent piece of bloody metal under blaring red light, the muffled sounds of a voice asking what was happening and a view of what was once his arm, now just a warped, torn mess, with the look of pulled clay.
Vaslan woke up again, this time he didn't feel like he'd just had his brain pulled out and turned backwards, left to crawl about in his skull to find its old alignment, this time it just hurt. A lot. His family were there, which made it hurt less thankfully.
Over the next few hours he would hug a lot of worried people and take a good long look at a mirror, and his new skeletonised prosthetic. His eye socket and the side of his skull were gone, and plated over. His arm was now a metallic, skeletonised prosthetic with basic sensor pads for control. Once he was alone, he thought, not about the consequences of the incident but how he was always against it, but now was considering finally getting a neural-machine interface, a NIMI, though he wasn't even able to consider the implications of breaking his own moral and personal regards before an unexpected sight walked through the door.
At the foot of his bed, 3 individuals began assembling a projector, one split off to close blinds and lock the door. A particularly tall one, the director of not the project, but the wing, stood with an extendable stick.
She stared at him with pure stoicism with undertones of doubt and suspicion.
She didn't bother introduce herself, instead her rough, cancer-broken voice spoke as if she was interrogating him.
"Vaslan Gallagher. Bronze-band researcher. One of the few left on project Kaolin"
"Y- yes that-"
"You were seen over footage entering grade V firing range number three at o'nine-thirty last morning, and then you didn't exit until o'eight Fourty-nine the next day. When you did exit, your skull had been shattered, your arm crushed into paste and your body circulating paint thinner."
Vaslan soured. This was it, he struggled again, stammering in a feeble attempt to save himself.
"I- I can e- well I know what I d-"
"But." Vaslan went quiet. "You also did this."
The projector switched on, the image was of a target, a wall, or at least was once a wall. Now it was more of a door, a massive gaping hole having pushed all the material outward in the expected effect of strong horizon gravitational warping. The damaged area glowed red and seemed to be dripping, and so was the wall behind it, and the wall behind that, and behind that.
"15 layers. The prototype drained power from the whole wing, tripped the primary breaker, yes the two ton one, and then projected that energy through 15 different sections before creating a 2 ton detonation in the cafeteria."
Vaslan simply stared at the projector slides cycling through various high definition images of pyrecrete and carbide walls with clean cut holes through them. The cafeteria was merely a vaguely spherical chamber of radially compressed debris.
"Was anyone-"
"No, the only person nearby was the security guard that saved your life, though you did narrowly miss Katalina...the cafeteria lady."
The footage switched to a camera feed inside the range. Vaslan was seemingly standing there shirtless in front of the large weapon, partially strewn about the room, his labcoat stuffed into the muzzle of the prototype and his actual shirt wrapped around his head. He seemed to be covered in oil and grease, and staring straight at the camera with a despondent look covering his grimy features.
"See, we recorded all we could, but after taking apart everything you could carry, your immediate next action was to disassemble the security and test cameras"
The next few seconds was Vaslan climbing onto a stool and jabbing curiously at the camera like a clueless bird before grabbing the whole thing and abruptly cutting the feed with a solid yank.
"So now our problem is that the machine's in shambles, but it works, and you're the only one who'd know why.
People are usually fired for this kind of damage, but usually that damage isn't our actual goal, so I went through a little negotiation and congratulations you're now assistant project lead."
She managed an oddly, partially fake smile as the other people in the room applauded him, their faces expressionless behind dark shades.
"I- what the fuck?"
The next few weeks were certainly going to be interesting.
But not Vaslan, not now, not when they were so goddamn close.
The intrepid bronze band researcher had struggled the whole day, and he'd keep struggling until the prototype fired. It's refusal to do so with the safety measures they had in place was a matter of de-saturation, everyone recognised that, but without those numerous failsafe's the plasma containment bubble always seemed to fail and they'd have to wait another week for the range to be rebuilt.
"12 nanometres?" He glanced at his notes, lying on the mobile workbench beside him.
"12 nanometres." The repetition was met by no hesitation as he dived insulated gloved hands into the innards of the machine in front of him. Fingers danced past wires, conduits and something likely radioactive before reaching a screwdriver locked into an adjustment pin, which he twisted with a precision unheard of from someone covered in so much sweat. He pulled out the tool, and moved his head close to the open access panel, keeping it open with an impatiently tapping palm. Somewhere beyond the cable busses he could make out the cowlings for the large circular array of magnets that funnelled plasma into the (hopefully) mathematically perfect shape to contain the active graviton packet generated by the massive generator behind it.
"Only 6 more left.....ughh fuck."
His gloves covered his face for a moment as he backed up, aiming to look at the prototype in its whole. For some reason, looking at the project as a whole gave some semblance of motivation; not one out of pride or accomplishment, but out of pure arrogant stubbornness that the stupid thing looked so complex and expensive, and it was, yet it wouldn't even fire. If he could even make a remnant of plasma exit the muzzle end he'd count that as a success for the night.
The researcher, and he supposed now engineer, reached out behind himself and grabbed a cup, the black synthetic coffee that he usually got was a lifeline for his mission, as it was for so many others. The machine was impressive, with its countless umbilical cables, prefabs and sensor equipment all shiny and chrome, awaiting to be fed power once more just so it can die out again and be thoroughly cursed at...again. He took a long, deep sip of his coffee, and the intricate stainless steel and modular rigs began to blur at the edges. His throat burned, his tongue burned, his lungs burned, he stumbled and his eyes drifted at what he just ingested.
It was a can. 'E-P5411 PAINT THINNER'
His legs wobbled under his own weight as he coughed again.
"..wrWhy..theffuck...did ii...even brinng thi-"
Lungs pushed out a wheeze as the floor raced to meet his face.
Consciousness is a strange thing. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't, sometimes you're somewhere in-between. For a few moments, Vaslan felt as if he was experiencing a superposition of all three states, his whole perception fighting itself, squabbling over what is and isn't real as the world popped and faded and blurred back into recognition. He groaned, barely able to open his eyes at first, he noticed he was staring straight at a lamp on the workbench...and that there were a lot more tools beneath it than he last remembered. On the topic of remembering though, he remembered to remember what he could. He was still at the lab, as he was, and he was working on a prototype, and then his...coffee...
His thoughts immediately switched to thankfulness that he was even alive, he'd no idea what the side effects of drinking laboratory-grade paint-thinner would be in the first place, but he assumed it wasn't fit for consumption considering he'd just woke from some sort of coma, and still couldn't feel the majority of his body. With a great effort, he twisted his neck toward a digital clock on the wall, it was as if his body was failing to gain any form of momentum and was buffering his every action and thought. A slow blink cleared his vision enough to see that it had been 12 hours...Of course it was a Friday...or well it was Saturday now. Another groan, this one was far more annoyed, mostly at the prospect that he'd have to walk to the infirmary and so he'd start to get up from the stool he was slumped on but realise he couldn't.
Though the feeling was only barely coming back to it, he could tell and soon see that his arm was jammed inside the machine. He pulled, nothing. he pulled again, harder, nothing, no movement. The panic he began to feel was enough to kick the chemicals into his brain that would begin to give him proper cognisance once more.
"Oh-...Oh shit what did I do, what did I do oh god the team are gonna kill me fuckfuckfuck."
Despite his worries, he still ordained to jiggle and yank his arm about. It was in there good, but he could feel something...some sort of latch his wrist was jammed against. He thought for but a moment, readjusted his position and pulled again.
CLUNK
He was free. He yanked his limb out and gave his forearm a good look; it seemed...ok, if a little bruised, not that he could feel it at least. Though that quickly became the least of his concerns; his pupils dilating at the familiar whine of the graviton field manipulation transformers filling the formerly silent firing range. The rising sound was equivalent to klaxons and so he'd run, or at least try to. His legs failed to carry him at the same speed his thoughts raced toward the door, and as soon as they began moving, his arm refused to follow. He panicked further, his vision turning toward the source of the problem. He wasn't stuck, his arm was caught in a field. Amongst the countless loud thoughts passing through Vaslan's head, the fact that the prototype had already reached such dangerous levels of graviton density was amongst the more puzzling ones.
Gravity pulled his arm toward the gaping access hatch. He grabbed his arm and pulled at it but it was like trying to pull a tiger that gets perpetually heavier by its tail, harder and harder to pull against until the moment it begins to pull ones self. Within a matter of seconds, his shoes failed to grip the pads on the floor and his arm sped toward the hatch, toward the containment chamber deeper in the machine. The struggle didn't stop, but it still created more problems; first of all, the access door swung closed, the weight broke something - this time he felt it.
His shouts and screams were drowned out by the sounds of active machinery, charging capacitors, spooling motors and it would keep getting worse, filling his ears like fire until it came to a whining crescendo.
The problem switched, gravity went from pulling to pushing within an instant. He was pushed back, his arm was pushed off, and the hatch, which had tough hinges mounted to an under-engineered machine frame, quickly followed him, and his eye socket halfway toward flying past him and hitting the opposite wall. Pain didn't seem to be a problem, in fact his whole body didn't seem to feel - at all, as the vision from his remaining eye faded away at the sight of a bent piece of bloody metal under blaring red light, the muffled sounds of a voice asking what was happening and a view of what was once his arm, now just a warped, torn mess, with the look of pulled clay.
Vaslan woke up again, this time he didn't feel like he'd just had his brain pulled out and turned backwards, left to crawl about in his skull to find its old alignment, this time it just hurt. A lot. His family were there, which made it hurt less thankfully.
Over the next few hours he would hug a lot of worried people and take a good long look at a mirror, and his new skeletonised prosthetic. His eye socket and the side of his skull were gone, and plated over. His arm was now a metallic, skeletonised prosthetic with basic sensor pads for control. Once he was alone, he thought, not about the consequences of the incident but how he was always against it, but now was considering finally getting a neural-machine interface, a NIMI, though he wasn't even able to consider the implications of breaking his own moral and personal regards before an unexpected sight walked through the door.
At the foot of his bed, 3 individuals began assembling a projector, one split off to close blinds and lock the door. A particularly tall one, the director of not the project, but the wing, stood with an extendable stick.
She stared at him with pure stoicism with undertones of doubt and suspicion.
She didn't bother introduce herself, instead her rough, cancer-broken voice spoke as if she was interrogating him.
"Vaslan Gallagher. Bronze-band researcher. One of the few left on project Kaolin"
"Y- yes that-"
"You were seen over footage entering grade V firing range number three at o'nine-thirty last morning, and then you didn't exit until o'eight Fourty-nine the next day. When you did exit, your skull had been shattered, your arm crushed into paste and your body circulating paint thinner."
Vaslan soured. This was it, he struggled again, stammering in a feeble attempt to save himself.
"I- I can e- well I know what I d-"
"But." Vaslan went quiet. "You also did this."
The projector switched on, the image was of a target, a wall, or at least was once a wall. Now it was more of a door, a massive gaping hole having pushed all the material outward in the expected effect of strong horizon gravitational warping. The damaged area glowed red and seemed to be dripping, and so was the wall behind it, and the wall behind that, and behind that.
"15 layers. The prototype drained power from the whole wing, tripped the primary breaker, yes the two ton one, and then projected that energy through 15 different sections before creating a 2 ton detonation in the cafeteria."
Vaslan simply stared at the projector slides cycling through various high definition images of pyrecrete and carbide walls with clean cut holes through them. The cafeteria was merely a vaguely spherical chamber of radially compressed debris.
"Was anyone-"
"No, the only person nearby was the security guard that saved your life, though you did narrowly miss Katalina...the cafeteria lady."
The footage switched to a camera feed inside the range. Vaslan was seemingly standing there shirtless in front of the large weapon, partially strewn about the room, his labcoat stuffed into the muzzle of the prototype and his actual shirt wrapped around his head. He seemed to be covered in oil and grease, and staring straight at the camera with a despondent look covering his grimy features.
"See, we recorded all we could, but after taking apart everything you could carry, your immediate next action was to disassemble the security and test cameras"
The next few seconds was Vaslan climbing onto a stool and jabbing curiously at the camera like a clueless bird before grabbing the whole thing and abruptly cutting the feed with a solid yank.
"So now our problem is that the machine's in shambles, but it works, and you're the only one who'd know why.
People are usually fired for this kind of damage, but usually that damage isn't our actual goal, so I went through a little negotiation and congratulations you're now assistant project lead."
She managed an oddly, partially fake smile as the other people in the room applauded him, their faces expressionless behind dark shades.
"I- what the fuck?"
The next few weeks were certainly going to be interesting.