· 7 min read
Unto the breach
I do love a good epistolary story. This is my latest experiment with the format, admittedly heavily inspired by the movie Annihilation, and by the news and fears around the current AI boom. Please don’t pay too much attention to the military aspects though - my only knowledge of the military comes from action movies.
2037.03.09 MONDAY 0908
Initial breach scheduled for 1000 hours. Target is quiet. All staff have been evacuated. Irregularities continue at intermittent intervals. Team Beta will remain outside to monitor. Team Alpha will enter. All relevant precautions have been planned. Maximum incursion length is 14 days.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.09 MONDAY 1837
Initial breach succeeded. Command has been established in the staff break room. Communication with Team Beta remains strong. Scouting the complex revealed no clues. Nothing broken. Everything powered down. One injury - Beaker tripped on an overgrown vine, sprained his ankle. Tomorrow we will breach the server room.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.10 TUESDAY 1428
Server room breach successful. Communication with Team Beta suffered significant noise while within the server room, but this was expected. Confirmed the servers are still operational, at least upon visual inspection. Also confirmed the servers are disconnected and the designated power supply routes are functionally dead. Tech Wilson remained at command today for safety. Tomorrow he will accompany us.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.11 WEDNESDAY 1352
Wilson is running diagnostics. No obvious answers so far. He has several servers hooked up to the machines he brought, and has half the team monitoring for alerts. Full diagnostics estimated to take up to 48 hours.
Beaker is benched - his ankle has swollen, and he is experiencing nerve pain and numbness in the corresponding foot.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.12 THURSDAY 1847
Around 0600, Beaker started screaming, clutching his foot. Two team members escorted him outside to Team Beta command. All three have been quarantined. That leaves the remaining team at seven.
Wilson reports no answers, but plenty of corrupted data. Circulating voltage appears to be decreasing as well. At the current rate of decay, the servers should shut down by themselves in twelve days.
Jugar claims the blinking server lights are causing migraines. However, with a smaller team, all hands are needed to monitor the diagnostic machines. I’ve already submitted a request for medication.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.13 FRIDAY 1923
Diagnostics complete. Wilson is still reviewing the data, but says the data is corrupting faster than he can analyse it. At best, it might mean the servers will fry themselves soon.
The light pattern seemed to change today. Some servers are exhibiting less regular patterns. Wilson agrees it may be due to the data corruption.
Team Beta sent a drone with medicine. Jugar class it doesn’t help - that the blinking has “burned itself inside his brain”. With diagnostics complete, we can spare him a day to rest, if he isn’t better tomorrow morning.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.14 SATURDAY 1148
Jugar reported less pain this morning, though his speech seems slow and disordered. Like he’s still half asleep. Have ordered a rest day.
Communication with Team Beta has started to experience intermittent dropouts. Equipment appears to be functioning as normal. News from quarantine says Beaker has an infection - he’s being treated on site. The other two are fine.
Wilson is continuing his analysis. He snuck notes into command last night, might have worked all night. Have reprimanded.
Smith complained about Wilson’s humming, Wilson said it helps him think. I’ve stationed Smith at the far end of the server room.
Answers can’t come soon enough.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.15 SUNDAY 1832
The pitch of the server hum has changed. Smith said it’s “discordant” - each server making a different sound. Half the team has a headache. I’ve organised a rotation. Wilson insisted he’s fine and didn’t need to join.
Jugar still seems half asleep. I’ll send him out if there’s no improvement tomorrow.
Wilson brought one of the office plants into the server room. Claims the greenery will help balance the blinking. It doesn’t, but it’s nice to have something else to stare at.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.16 MONDAY 1438
Jugar is missing. Wilson woke at 0500 and discovered his empty bedroll. I left Jones and Riley with Wilson and took Smith and Su to search. No result. Have reported to Team Beta, though communication has become quite staticky and disrupted.
Wilson claims he’s close to an answer. The server noises continue to differ. I think the tones are changing over time as well. The blink speed of the server lights seems related to the pitch.
Wilson is humming almost non-stop now. I wonder if he’s drowning out the server noise.
One week down, one to go.
Lt Narra
—
2037.03.17 TUESDAY 0919
Riley woke up disoriented. Same as Jugar was days ago. Claims he felt fine. Have sent him to Team Beta. Communication is nearly unintelligible, so I sent him with a letter in case.
Wilson started pulling pieces out of the servers late yesterday. Not to investigate or hook up diagnostics - he appears to be rearranging things. When asked, he just said it’s more optimal. Whatever he’s doing, there’s a lot of running long wires all over the place. We have to be careful not to trip.
I’m not sure he’s been sleeping - he seems quite manic.
Started a rest rotation while we’re in the server room, so someone is on rest each hour. Jones fell asleep during his.
Still no sign of Jugar.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.18 WEDNESDAY 1826
Circulating voltage is decreasing faster. Original estimate was another six days until shut down, now Jones is estimating three. Servers do not appear to be suffering for the decreasing voltage though. If anything, the humming and blinking seems to be increasing.
Su reported a headache. I have one too. I don’t think any human is meant to spend this long around so many blinking lights. Even Wilson is blinking often, like his eyes are dry and sticky.
Wilson’s plant seems to really like the server room - it’s grown a new leaf. He says it’s an “air plant”.
Still no sign of Jugar. No update on Riley - communication is barely functioning.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.19 THURSDAY 1947
Su still has a headache, but is showing no signs of impairment.
Jones almost fell asleep standing at his post. I’ve given him my rest hour as well to get some good sleep in.
Still no sign of Jugar. Communications are completely down.
Three more days.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.20 FRIDAY 1142
Jones won’t wake. We can’t afford to decrease the team but Su’s headache hasn’t gone away so I’m sending them both out. That leaves Wilson, Riley, Smith, and me.
Wilson is still rerouting cables all over the place. He spends most of his time waist deep in the server racks, doing who knows what. He won’t let any of us help though - says we’ll just mess things up.
Smith tripped on a cable earlier. Their green-brown colour is hard to see in the blinking kaleidoscope o the server room. Wilson seemed quite upset, but it’s just a cable.
Two more days.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.21 SATURDAY 1836
Smith is awake but not lucid. My headache feels like it’s splitting my brain apart. The blinking lights are starting to look like patterns moving across the room - like clouds in the sky, or tree leaves swaying in the wind.
Riley is watching him while I watch Wilson.
I want out. I want to be done. But we only have one more day.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.22 SUNDAY 0828
There are vines in the servers. The cables are alive, draped across the walls and floor like parasites choking a rainforest tree.
Wilson disappeared part way through the night. We found him in the server room, elbows deep in components. His blinks follow the same pattern as the server lights.
Riley heard me yelling and came to look. He tried to wrestle Wilson out of the server racks. The cables wrapped around his arm and broke it.
We’re leaving. With or without Wilson.
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.22 SUNDAY 1053
The vines have closed the doors and exits. Every window, every vent — all covered in a thick mass of vines. We tried bullets, blades, and fire - all just made the vine back faster and sooner. We’ve regrouped by the service entrance to plan - the vines seem thinnest here,
Lt. Narra
—
2037.03.22 SUNDAY 1147
Vines came out of the air conditioning vent and strangled Riley. Just lifted him into the air and choked him til he died. I couldn’t hack through them fast enough to help.
I’ve got one last idea. If I can get to the backup generator, I might be able to do something.
Tell my family I love them.
Lieutenant James Narra