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Registered Phenomena Code: 479 Containment Rating: Omega Lethality Rating: White |
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Containment Protocols: Current Authority operations regarding RPC-479 have been organized in three phases.
Phase One - RED: Primary directive is OBSERVATION. No direct actions regarding public perception of RPC-479 are to be taken, as current secrecy tools are ineffective (memetic treatment, amnestics, traditional concealment, etc).
Available Research Division units have been redirected from lower priority projects to study of RPC-479's nature. Protection Division intelligence assets are conducting disinformation campaigns, reinforcing public denial, and intervening various media groups to minimize spread where possible. Containment Division departments are on stand-by.
Total memetic quarantine is currently being enforced.
Research Division |
Office of Analysis and Science |
---|
Dpt. of Oneironautics |
Dpt. of Psychology Unit-479 |
Dpt. of Anthropology Site-007 Advisory |
Bureau of Acquisitions |
Dpt. of Anti-Memetics [ALL HANDS ON DECK] |
Dpt. of Cryptology [ALL HANDS ON DECK] |
Anomaly Experimentation Teams |
AET-479 Team 1 ("Cyan Five") |
AET-479 Team 2 ("Purple Six") |
Protection Division |
Intelligence Task Force "HYPNOS" |
DEP-022, Counterintelligence Department: Site-223, Site-007, Site-002, Site-009[…] |
DEP-039, Tactical Control Department: Special HYPNOS Unit |
Containment Division |
Protocol Laboratory |
Emergency Coordination Assembly |
Phase Two - WHITE: Secondary directive is CONTAINMENT. Direct actions to limit and reverse spread will be undertaken when the vector of the contagion is identified. Multiple Protocol Laboratory units will be assembled to test parallel methodologies.
Sanitized information regarding RPC-479 may then be released to other Research Division departments.
Phase Three - GREEN: Tertiary directive is CONCEALMENT. Secrecy must be restored by all means available. Emergency funding and assets will be redirected to Authority Central Intelligence for the removal of sensitive information, confiscation of materials, and dispersal of amnestics. The Authority Special Assets Act will be lifted for the duration of GREEN PHASE operations, permitting usage of all subclass Utility items, entities, and phenomena deemed suitable for the task.
ACI leadership may recruit any and all Authority personnel from any Division if deemed necessary.
ALL INFORMATION PAST THIS POINT DEEMED PROVISIONAL
Description: Poorly-defined sensorial contagion1 [RPC-479] spreading throughout the American continent. Though difficult to precise, it is roughly describable as a "contagious,2 recurrent oneiric experience" that is unusually concrete and emotionally pervasive. No memetic vector has yet been made apparent, but the regional progression of the anomaly (beginning in Central America and spreading both north and southwards) strongly suggests a verbal mechanism.3
The oneiric experience in question [RPC-479-01] slightly varies between subjects, but typically consists of awakening within a familiar house, followed by a brief walk to a dining room populated by nondescript familial figures eating a meal, and concluding when the dreamer approaches a closed window and stares outside, to a somewhat distant tower-like structure.
This final scene can last anywhere from five minutes to several hours while the dreamer is relatively lucid and experiencing time at a near-real pace. RPC-479-01 occurs at least once per night, and is currently understood to entirely replace all other dream experiences.
At an impossibility to confidently describe other features of the anomaly or its effects upon sufferers – which count anywhere between 500,000 to a few million4 –, a compilation of relevant excerpts, artistic works, summaries, and other illustrative and official documents are attached below in lieu of a formalized file.
Commentary by the author of this temporary document, Researcher M. Stedman, will be attached where helpful.
1. A Testimony of September 9th, 2019
Excerpted from the personal journal of “A”. Earliest known record of RPC-479.
[…]
The cold starts creeping in, as if little gusts drip past the (now compromised) safety of the light. I feel the light above me waver. Across the shaft, I can see other lamps get snuffed. I prepare to follow the chandelier before I’m left in the darkness, breathing in deep, facing the brief yet excruciatingly large void between my current safe spot and the next lamplight, and then–
Then, nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s neither blank nor black, it’s just nothing. A sting of adrenaline washes over and dries up before I see anything else happen. It feels calm, but I’m on edge, almost surely as a remnant of the nightmare I just had.
Minuscule particles of light appear around the empty panorama, tiny pink blots popping in all over. Seeing that really put into perspective just how wide the human vision is. It’s almost dizzying when you don’t have anything in particular to focus on, and in fact I could feel myself get almost nauseous before the pink blots started coalescing and shifting a little in color.
They form the fuzzy image of a wooden ceiling above me, lit by a pink light. Obviously, I’ve woken up–except there’s no wooden ceiling above my bed. I don’t have to give it more than a few seconds of thought before I realize it’s a false awakening. But something else is going on. I’m far too lucid for it to be a dream. It’s only slightly hazy, more like sleepiness than sleep.
I’m laying in a bed a lot like mine, but not quite. The bedroom is definitely not like mine. Way too ordered. Bookshelves in order and clothes folded in place. Nothing sticks out of its right spot.
A slight dread crawls up my belly and I slide off the bed (fully dressed), though this dream feels far too innocuous to be a danger. Much too mundane to be like a nightmare. I stride to the door, which is in the right corner of the wall in front of the bed, beside a half-opened white wooden closet, and I step out into the house.
The next few moments start to blur. There’s a hallway, and at the end a living room. A family is having lunch around a wide, flat pill-shaped table. Or dinner. Or breakfast, or tea-time. What they’re eating isn’t clear, and I don’t really pay attention to that because it just so happens that they don’t have faces.
Which isn’t as alarming as it should be. It’s not all that out of the ordinary, it seems, for things to be so. Despite the absence of any mouths, I hear whispers, and a faint, echo-y noise when a tall woman, one of two adults, talks to me and urges me to sit.
I walk toward the table, then to the right. The arbitrariness of that direction is surprising, until I see a window close by, its borders draped in warm, pinkish drapes. But what’s beyond there is more interesting.
A white sculpture tower rises from a black cut-out of a suburban skyline, covered in the faint pink light of a winter morning. It’s hard to define whether it’s cylindrical, or more complex. The texture, like marble but gray, looks somehow wrinkled at a distance, though not in the same way that the “wrinkled” adjective immediately evokes. There's small, curly protrusions that are uncountable, and they mess with the weird lighting somehow, giving the impression of bigger fuzzy shapes carved into the surface.
The tower tightens as it rises, and is topped by some kind of flat, stretched circle. That part’s hard to see, because the Sun is right above it: though looking at it has the same blinding effect of looking at the real thing, this one’s not just pink–it’s fainter somehow. Like it doesn’t exude as much light as it should to hurt the eyes like that.
Then, nothing else happens. I could describe the next few hours as frozen in place, but a slight breeze that moves around the black shades of the trees across the skyline demonstrates otherwise. Time drips by excruciatingly slowly. Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip-drip, tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock, and it’s not even been a minute. I try to see what else is around the house, but there isn’t anywhere for me to move.
I’m stuck in place, gazing at that tower, though I can see and hear time passing by in a strange kind of stasis, as if throughout hours and hours the family has made no progress toward concluding their meal. Panic starts to pool above the belly button, spreading into the back and up the neck before it sort of fades.
But nothing else happens at all. I’m there for hours, for real hours, not dream-hours that hastily drift by. The tower is still there, unmoving. The features on its surface seem to shift a tiny bit every time my eyes pass through them, which happens thousands of times during that lasting quiescence.
To pass the time I try to memorize every detail of the image, even the little wrinkles on the drapes that barely enter the periphery of my vision, though I realize soon that this will not be possible: if the features of the tower change every time I look, it will be impossible to complete a clear mental image of the scene. It’s so frustrating to grasp, though I can’t feel angry. That’s really worrying. Normally I get furious at this kind of shit, but I can’t now. It’s just hollow. I start to feel desperate, but it’s not a strong sense of desperation, it’s just numb—
The alarm clock rips me out of the window and into the real world. I don’t feel super scared or sad. I try to look for the oily sensation that seems to seep from below my tongue whenever I wake from an unpleasant dream, but it’s not there.
I get up, and I get ready to go to work.
I’m not worried, though I don’t yet know that the spiral hallway was the last gift I’ll get from rapid-eye movement sleep.
I don’t yet know that I’ll dream of the tower and the house every night of my life.
Commentary: Despite the obvious dramatism, I picked this particular example because it displays common traits front and center. The most relevant of these is the description of emotional dullness throughout the latter dream: it is, as far as I understand, universal. It has been exaggerated in this instance, but it is rather accurate to the experience. Besides, it was meant to remain private before it was picked up by agents when “A” was quarantined back in ‘19, which guarantees a degree of sincerity and accuracy. I’m not sure where he is now, though he has probably been returned to his household. It was a sloppy process, so a lot of his properties remained confiscated (journal included), and it’s not like he has anyone to go to denounce this. Yeah, no amnestics. It would have been entirely pointless when he has basically no relevant information and even Class As have zero effect on the phenomenon.
Anyway. This is likely why dramatization and purple prose is so prevalent across patients. Multiple instances of the dream across hundreds of nights have an additive emotional effect that translate into a chronic depression-like dulling, so in an effort to reclaim what has been lost it is easy to indulge in literary excesses. I believe this is encouraged by mainstream therapy, and our own unconventional attempts as well.
Something interesting: the abrupt cutoff of the earlier nightmare is a common testimony. Obviously getting an exact time for the “switch” is tough, but testimony and estimates combined always land somewhere within the first 3 or 4 hours of sleep. It suggests something akin to an incubation process.
The transition itself is nothing short of vexing. There is absolutely no point of comparison to it. Everything we understand about the human psyche (if perhaps not so much in the mainstream) points to the conclusion that there is no moment in human functioning in which the stimuli to the visual centers of the brain is null. The eyes may not be transmitting, but the brain is always receiving.
The blankness between normal sleep and the dream of the tower goes against this. Absolute absence of stimuli. Nothing. Like TV static, or like the SMPTE color bars that indicate that there is no signal, except it’s even more blank than that, yet can’t be compared to a total shutdown. Perhaps like a “VIDEO 1” blue-screen… I’m losing track.
Without any frame of reference, we're more or less stuck in making any progress towards ameliorating any of 479's effects. Even got our hands tied on amnestics. In the three-phase plan toward restoring normality, this document is part of Phase I: observation. Cataloguing and attempting to figure out just what the hell is going on.
2. Critical Eye: The Tower and the House [TRANS. ES]
Excerpted from The Moth's Gazette. Published in Issue #47. Written by Salvador Baxter.
To be absolutely clear, I do not plan to buy into the absurd sphere of make-believe that surrounds The Tower and the House as an art movement. The claims of dream-hijacking are not much more than an amusing memetic device to attract the vulgar eye to an otherwise publicly unremarkable movement. While an undeniably clever exploitation of the Mexican populus's willingness to believe in the supernatural, I fear the novelty has long spun out of control and is rapidly wearing thin. This essay will thus discuss only the directly artistic merits of the movement. Other matters poorly interact with the craft.
It would be pointless to examine individual paintings, music or sculptures. This is not only because I am ill-equipped to discuss the latter two: the subject matter for each art-piece included in the initial wave of the movement (also named the School of Plaza de México, or the Twenty of the Plaza) is easy to intuit based on its name, and it is treated identically in each and every piece that constitutes this wave. The true significance of the movement is emergent rather than intrinsic, as will be explained shortly.
[…]
The formidable Tower and the protagonistic House are universal and depicted with rigorous realism, though with minor stylistic variation. The former rises above the latter, while the latter encourages the viewer to observe the former from its height via unremarkable techniques of space and color. This has an obvious effect of forcing a view of the Tower from a low-angle, framing it as imposing, and a less-than-obvious effect of equating the House to the viewer by placing it on their same level.
Some dry critics and unimaginative psychologists jump to make of the Tower a phallus and the House a vagina, or other equally silly grasp of meaning (I mean, the opposite would make more sense! The distant Tower evokes the lonesome, obsessive stare of a lovestruck, rejected man far more than it does a woman, who can better recover from heartbreak). The painfully blatant thread of realism that serves as a thematic lynch-pin clearly escapes them: it becomes rather apparent that its message cannot thus be communicated via semiotic abstraction. Had the wits of fame not touched the movement first I would have accused the movement of excessive patency in its symbolism, but the disappointingly bland consensus of the critical world have proven me resoundingly incorrect.
[…]
The Tower and the House must be interpreted as real, viewed again and again through the same perspective, communicating the same symbols. I hazard a postulation, perhaps unsubstantiated, that they are not meant to be art in the strict sense of the word. They are excruciatingly literal in an attempt to deny the very idiosyncrasies of interpretation that make true art. Artistically speaking, they are meant to be nothing.
The incessant viewing of the identical figures through identical perspectives and identical depictions evokes the oft misinterpreted quote by Alejandra Pizarnik, which refers to love more than anarchy: "…rebellion consists in watching a rose until one's eyes are pulverized." The very act of interpretation is destroyed by repetition and relentless realism. Rather than evoking the imagination, the Tower and the House seek to destroy it. They are a nothingness so thorough that they deprive the viewer from even the right to interpretation, branding each synapse with a clear, uncompromising image where abstraction would suffice.
[…]
I am forced thus to conclude that the Tower and the House constitute a clever parody of the art of interpretation. While juvenile attempts to attack the craft typically bring deserved anger and criticism from me, I must concede that I am thoroughly amused by the cleverness of this particular stunt. From the unorthodox publicity of a dream-hijacking to the presentation of each piece in an environment associated with the avant-garde and the abstract, the hand of the authors reveals its subtle intelligence and extensive knowledge of the biases in the world of art.
Out of all areas of human thought, art was the last I imagined would be the victim of an Alan Sokal affair!
Commentary: Ironically for the point it's attempting to make, more than half of the essay is based on insufficiently grounded interpretations. The perspective analysis is silly (just what are those "unremarkable techniques"?), and the counter-proposal of the Tower being akin to a woman laughable. But it does achieve an understanding that I have never seen from someone unaffected: the destruction of meaning.
The continued experience of RPC-479-01 eventually exhausts the desire to seek anything close to a meaning or message. The deprivation of rest and imagination takes care of it very quickly. This quote is pretty much on point with the feeling:
They are a nothingness so thorough that they deprive the viewer from even the right to interpretation, branding each synapse with a clear, uncompromising image where abstraction would suffice.
An implied factor in the artistic movement that's the subject matter of the essay is the "branding" of an image. That becomes rather clear considering the prioritization of realism over style, and it very clearly reflects the additive effect of hundreds of viewings of RPC-479-01: induced, forcible obsession. "Seeing something everywhere you look" is a common expression that doesn't quite make sense until one experiences either love or RPC-479-01.
When denied the basic sense of imagination that even the dull everyman has, it's difficult not to compare absolutely everything to the Tower and the House. They become symbols so malleable and invasive that they don't seem to mean anything in of themselves.
Can't help but wonder if they truly don't.
3. Christ as the Tower [TRANS. PT]
Excerpted from [REDACTED]. Brief column written by P. Henriques.
To be tested by the Lord is not uncommon. To see the strings of the supernatural so clearly, and for Him to uproot faith from the very emotional core of Man, is. Some see the arrival of the Tower and the House as the opposite of a miracle, the magic of the world of dreams taken by the demonic in an attempt to shake our foundations.
To that I say: nonsense! It is clear as day to the artistically inclined that this cannot be so.
Consider the nature of the Tower: distant. Tall. Imposing. All-consuming. A colossal symbol from which it is impossible to turn our eyes away. Consider then, the nature of the House: familiar. Minuscule. Warm. Protective. An enveloping aegis whose presence is so easy to forget when the eyes fix upon the Tower.
Is it not evident, thus, what they together represent? Does it not evoke a very familiar sight upon those of us that visit church every Sunday?
My friends, I say to you that the House is but a Church — literal and figurative, as in both senses it warms and protects us —, and the Tower is the Cross from which Christ's body hangs. Does its horizontal top not resemble the shape of the Cross even?
As to why would a symbol so ubiquitous be abstracted to the point of being unrecognizable, I see a clear answer: the dulling of our passion and the appearance of the Tower and the House are a message, and its subject is the weakness of Man, which we are oh so prone to forgetting.
With a single layer of blurring glass, He has shown us how quick we forget our love, how much we rely on the symbols we gave ourselves to keep our hearts in the right place. Forced us to stare directly into the answer to and cause of our pain, as youth stare through the window to the subject of their adolescent love passing by.
Is this not an obvious accusation of idolatry, for only the idolatrous forget their gods without statues to remind them, where sincere love is what we are taught to give as we receive?
Commentary: This is fucking stupid. I'm sure even the less reasonable of churchgoers would agree with me that this is a reach. It does, however, illustrate my earlier point about obsession and nonsensical comparisons. This is an excellent example of someone seeing something everywhere.
I can even picture how this man must've come to such a silly conclusion. Walking inside the nave of a church, and gazing to an altar or a sculpture of the Cross, and making the blatantly obvious connection. I can't blame him, really. I can just blame him for writing this out and thinking it a good idea to send it out there instead of wrapping the paper and burning it to grill some bife after mass.
Tangents aside, the characteristics he ascribes to the Tower and the House are not exclusive to him. Quite the opposite: almost everyone I've interviewed who is infected by 479 uses similar adjectives at one point or another. I would very much like to analyze this and tie it all together in a nice symbolic package, but I'm afraid I would simply be stepping on top of the same landmine I criticize others for walking into while analyzing -01.
I'm left without much to say about this except point it out. I presume the adjectives he lists from the Tower and the House follow from pulverizing his eyes by looking at them for hours and hours of sleep and — ill-equipped to safely claim otherwise — do not seem to have any particular significance.
Do you know how many drafts it took me to cut down this commentary to a reasonable size? About six. I don't know why this particular fragment incensed me so much. Look at me, I'm almost as passionately idiotic as that guy by now.
4. Exploration Attempt
Courtesy of the Department of Oneironautics
[0:00] SCOUT ENTERS RPC-479-01 IN EXPECTED POSITION.
[0:30] WAITING…
[1:00] WAITING…
[1:05] SCOUT IS REMINDED OF MISSION AND URGED TO BEGIN MOVEMENT: STRUGGLES TO LEAVE POSITION.
[1:10] WAITING…
[1:30] SCOUT MANAGES TO OPEN WINDOW AND VAULTS OUTSIDE.
[1:42] SCOUT APPROACHES TOWER.
[1:55] WAITING…
[2:01] SCOUT LOCATES DOOR.
[2:05] WAITING…
[2:07] SCOUT OPENS DOOR.
[2:10] WAITING…
[2:18] SCOUT SCALES INTERNAL STAIRS: STEEL, RUSTY. INTERIORS DARK, MARBLE. SUGGESTS SCULPTURE INSTEAD OF TOWER.
[2:20] WAITING…
[2:30] WAITING…
[2:40] WAITING…
[2:47] SCOUT INFORMS THAT THERE IS NO TOWER.
[2:50] WAITING…
[2:55] SCOUT INFORMS THAT THERE IS A WOMAN.
[3:32] CONTACT LOST WITH SCOUT.
[3:40] SCOUT AWAKENS.
Commentary: I don't know how they did this. I just don't fucking know.
I really wish they'd given me a full version of this. You can tell there's gaps, like how the scout vaults outside and the next update marks them as "approaching Tower" as if there isn't a minimum of a kilometer between the Tower and the House. There's a full skyline of buildings and trees and streets that just isn't mentioned. And just what did the scout say after waking up?
That's not even mentioning the "scout informs that there is a woman" part. I don't even know where to start with that. It's so jarring I assume the scout must've seen something else between saying that there isn't a tower and seeing the woman. Wouldn't make sense otherwise, though it feels familiar to the sense of "blankness" that I mentioned takes over between the transition of a regular dream and 479-01.
Maybe they just imagined a woman in the absence? But that wouldn't fit with what we little else we know. Pareidolia is well known and expected in a case like this, but there's nothing like it inside -01. We know that for a fact because when looking at the outer surface of Tower, a prime ground for a phenomenon like it, no one has claimed that they see anything but diffuse shapes. Not even our tests with TV static return as blank as this.
I suppose the nondescript nature of the exploration attempt helps exemplify the general feeling of nothingness that takes over when trying to analyze anything regarding the anomaly. I don't know. This doesn't make much sense. What do they expect me to do with this?
5. Failed Attempt to Describe a Dream [TRANS. PT]
Short Story by Suélen Mendes
The house is warm. Though the pink light of the early morning leaks through the window, the outside is not. The air inside condenses into a blurry patina over the cold glass. Freezing water runs through the side of my hand as I wipe it off, and I stare outside. There is a Tower, distant like a cold woman
The eyes open to see a Tower, diffuse and distant, past an iced window. Its contours blur into the cold patina of condensed air, though they let me see that
I wake, and I see that I am inside a House, bathed in pinkish morning light. There is a window in front, caked in condensed water. There is a Tower outside, and it rises to the Sun
Tower
House
TOWER
HOUSE
TOWER
HOUSE
T
O
W
E
R
H
O U
S E
The Tower blurs into the sky, and I realize that there never was a Tower, and there never was a House. I see only a distant woman, and myself, staring at
Commentary: …What's up with the damn woman comparisons? The exploration attempt mentioned a woman. So does the Christ as the Tower guy. It's bugging me, though I know it's in line with everything else I know. I'm just wondering things I shouldn't.
It ends the same way too. There is no Tower, there is a woman. Equally as abruptly, without any explanation. This thing was published in a Brazilian amateur short story collection, which meant there is absolutely no commentary, and the author's other work doesn't help. I don't think she has a website.
I think this must be a part of the dream that some are getting access to. Perhaps… I wonder if the exploration attempt took place in South America?
There's no way I get sent there for research. Not even if I beg to the Oneironautics head. I should get that idea out of my head.
…Although I do have a week or two of off days backed up from this entire ordeal. If they let me take a vacation, I know I've got the money. Because. Well.
I was asked not to put it here, but I guess I have to now. I've been through RPC-479-01 about two hundred and thirty times in total. That might not be a surprise, given how hard it's been to keep focus lately. I'm just obsessing over it. I think that's why there being no Tower bugs me: I've been fantasizing for a month about what might be in there, and how to get to it.
That's probably how she's feeling too, the author of the story. You can just feel the frustration to get something out through the brain fog in every line. A lot of criticism about it goes that it doesn't feel like a draft, more like a poorly crafted attempt at imitating one for dramatic effect and without much value, but I couldn't agree less. I guess you just have to know like we do.
But I don't know if I can say "we". I see -01 a little differently from everyone. Rather than staring from inside the House, I see myself outside, staring at the window. And it's not entirely dull for me. It's sad. I think you see why I'm wondering things I shouldn't.
6. File Update
04/06/2021
ADDENDUM 479-A | RPC-479-02 [15/05/2021]
Exhaustive testing and interrogations conducted by the Department of Oneironautics between the months of September 2020 and May 2021 have led to the confirmation of a long-standing speculation regarding RPC-479.
Though the technical specifics will be detailed in a later document once research regarding the nature of RPC-479 progresses to a satisfactory degree, it is now understood that RPC-479-01 is experienced in greater extension and clarity5 when the affected subject is in the Western hemisphere, below latitude 10°S (upper frontier of Brazil) and above 70°S (southmost point of Chile and Argentina).
Where details are somewhat inconsistent and vague outside of this region (though still in excess of what is normal for dreams), they are remarkably clear for subjects within it. This has been determined to be a consequence of current geographic location rather than location of infection or residence. The possibility of experiencing events past the normal ending point for RPC-479-01 is heavily suspected, but remains unconfirmed. Intensive research will remain in place throughout the region.
ADDENDUM 479-B | Mr. Marcos Castillo [03/06/2021]
Continued testing has clarified the nature of the anomalous region. It is no longer understood as a clear area of increased effect, rather an intrinsic property of RPC-479. It is defined as an intensification of RPC-479-01, inversely proportional to the distance of the affected subject from a certain origin point.
Exhaustive testing and process of elimination reduced the area of intensive research of the location of the origin point: the city of Villa Franca, Ñeembucú, Paraguay.
Local investigations led to the discovery of an undiscovered human corpse in a house within the residential outskirts of the city, identified as Mr. Marcos Castillo. The house remained unkempt for a lengthy period before his death (in excess of two months), corresponding to a period of relapse into an earlier depressive state, as recorded by his psychiatrist. His fate was unknown by other inhabitants of the town, citing his social withdrawal. Given the absence of an Internet connection in the household, it is almost certain that Mr. Castillo was unaware of the existence of RPC-479.
Mr. Castillo is of interest regarding RPC-479 due to recovery of a completed amateur painting of his production within his home, which features the scene associated with the conclusion of RPC-479-01: the frame of a window implying a house, and a proportionally tall object outside. Though the nature of the object is presently undetermined due to the crude composition and technique behind the artwork, it is strongly believed that it is not a tower.
Commentary: When I saw the name, I had to go. As if I didn't have to already.
This is a letter of confession. I got the vacation days I wanted, with a strict condition to remain near Site-047. I didn't. I flew the entire way to Asunción, with a Panama stopoff, begging I didn't get a call from my supervisor. I begged the whole bus trip to Villa Franca that no one from work wanted to hear from me and wondered why I had no signal. Almost forgot how to get to the bus station, though it's been… What, ten, fifteen years since I've last been here?
Something especially funny: the symptoms of -01 exposure match very damn well with his clinical history. Depression. Lack of imagination, likely caused by some kind of disorder. Blunted social capabilities. They must've skipped this from the addendum pending some kind of approval to release his information, or a research confirmation perhaps, but it just clicks in place now. 479, I mean.
Except it doesn't, not at all. I visited Marcos's house (no security, surprisingly, which must be a SOUTHCOM thing, though I can't discard surveillance) and hung about for a while, but it just doesn't even resemble -01. Not even close. And obviously there's no Tower where there should be, thought a signal tower gave me the goosebumps when the bus attendant woke me up at Villa Franca.
I just hope nobody saw me, because what I did next was even more stupid. I asked around about Marcos. No cover, no backup. Some random American in sunglasses asking about a dead man in heavily accented Spanish, only a few days after his corpse was discovered? No shot that didn't get around. I wish I thought of it while I was asking. I'm so dull now that I almost went to ask to the local morgue where his corpse was. Can you imagine?
But I got a lead now. Someone told me about his mom, Bianca Castillo. I'm driving back to Asunción as soon as the bus arrives. I know how to get to where she lives.. Fingers crossed I have enough time.
7. Interview with Ms. Castillo [AUDIO ONLY: TRANS ES.]
06/06/2021
[Stedman's steps can be heard over a faint city ambience, interrupted once by a passing car. They gradually slow down, eventually stopping entirely. She seems to fumble with her coat, verifying if the recorder is on. A loud doorbell follows.]
[A door is unlocked and opened. More steps, presumed to be an approaching person: Ms. Bianca Castillo. A metal gate creaks open. Her voice is somewhat hoarse.]
Castillo: Who… [Clears throat.] Who is it?
Stedman: Is this Ms. Bianca?
Castillo: Uh— Yes, this is Bianca. I'm sorry for… Sorry for the robes, I don't expect visitors this early.
[Brief pause, punctuated by a faint "click". This is believed to be the sound of sunglasses folding.]
Stedman: May I come in, please? I would like to discuss—
Castillo: Oh my God. María!
[Pause.]
Stedman: I'm sorry?
Castillo: You don't remember me? My Lord, what a yanqui accent you have! [Pause.] I'm not confusing you for someone else, am I?
Stedman: I— I don't think so. From where do I…?
Castillo: We'll talk in a second. The morning is so cold! Please come in, I'll heat up some tea. Earl gray, one sugar, is that right, querida?
Stedman: …Yes, that's right. Thank you.
[Footsteps, followed by the metal gate creaking, then the door slamming shut. The following steps are against a wooden floor, with a mild echo indicating a spacious home.]
[Castillo continues walking, while Stedman stays in place and looks around. She remains there for an extended period of time, perhaps indicative of surprise.]
Castillo: Querida! Tell me about you! I gather you've been up North for some time?
Stedman: I work over there. But, miss… From where do I know you?
[A stove is turned on, and a kettle placed over it.]
Castillo: Oh, dear! Here I am, babbling along like an old hag. You don't remember my old house? You'd show up in those mud-stained shoes of yours and step on eeeeevery little corner of my wooden floor while you waited for tea. Has it been that long, really?
Stedman: I… I came here one summer, right? With my family. I recognize this house. It's… It's very familiar.
Castillo: Yes! I taught your mother tennis way back in Buenos Aires. She dragged you and your dad here for a few weeks in '03. Oh, those red, wet cheeks of yours! You didn't stop crying until you had your mouth stuffed with cookies, and even then…! But tell me, what takes you here to Asunción?
[Pause. Stedman begins a question, but is interrupted by an affirmative response by Castillo. She quietly moves a chair and sits.]
Stedman: I'm sorry for showing up so suddenly. I didn't have your phone, and I'm… Well, I'm here because of work, but…
Castillo: But?
Stedman: Nevermind. Damn, I'm tired. Sorry.
Castillo: Oh sweetheart, take it easy. I'm sure it's a frenzy up there, with all this fuss going on. We'll talk about it after tea.
[Kettle begins to whistle. Castillo retrieves it from the stove. She chuckles, then retrieves a pair of cups from a drawer and pours water in them. Stedman sighs faintly.]
Stedman: Where's Marcos?
[Pause.]
Castillo: Ah. He isn't around anymore, sweetheart. [Pause.] I got the bad news not too long ago. I'm sorry.
Stedman: No, no. I'm… Christ, sorry. Sorry.
Castillo: It's fine, it's fine. I just… I remember when he'd play with you, running all over the house. He was a different kid, that summer. He wasn't the happiest boy.
Stedman: You don't have to talk about it.
Castillo: I'm alright. Don't worry. It's— Oh, the tea.
[Castillo takes both cups and places them on a table. Long pause. Both drink.]
Stedman: He moved to Villa Franca, right? I think he took up painting some time ago, too.
Castillo: Painting! Now that's something… But. How do you know that?
Stedman: Oh! I… I read it on the news, once. I didn't realize who it was.
Castillo: On the news. My son, on the news, for painting? What weird things you're telling me…
Stedman: I saw one of his paintings. It's beautiful. Don't have my phone with me to show you, but I could try getting a photo later.
Castillo: Just what did he paint? He was never one for vistas, Marquitos. I can't imagine what he'd possibly…
Stedman: Uh… Some kind of white tower, through a window. I think it's a tower, at least.
Castillo: A window! That makes a little sense. He'd always stare through… [Chair sliding.] …that window over there, he'd look at the street for a looong time. Stayed glued right to it while your family left, and the entire day after! But there's no tower over here.
[Pause. Stedman's breathing becomes slightly agitated.]
Stedman: The day I left? Do you— Do you remember what it was like?
[Chair slides again. Castillo places down her cup, which appears to be empty, then sighs.]
Castillo: Cold, I think… Yes. The window was iced, slightly. I don't think poor Marcos saw much while… [Pause.] Oh dear! Are you alright?
Stedman: I— I'm fine. [Mumbling.] It's just uh… Just the pressure.
Castillo: What? Do you need medication for that?
Stedman: No, no. I'll be fine.
[Both women get up. Stedman is led by Castillo to a sofa. She gently sits there, breathing in slowly. Long pause.]
Castillo: Don't tell me you're getting like that because… [Chuckles briefly.]
Stedman: No, no, I don't think he was painting me, God. Too tired, that's all.
[Lengthy pause. Stedman's breathing stabilizes.]
Stedman: …Do you think he might have?
Castillo: I can't say, honey.
Stedman: Sorry, just… Give me a second.
[Cloth brushing against cloth. Stedman's hand reaches inside her coat, shutting down the recorder.]
Commentary: I had a dream last night. I dreamed that I was outside Marcos's house, wrapped in a white coat that clapped slightly when the rain hit it. And that he was staring at me, through an iced window, bathed in what little pinkish morning light leaked through the rainclouds. He waved. But I didn't.
And then, I walked away.