Southside Lab Footage

Item

Image Cube25.jpg
Description This small data file doesn't have any obvious labeling, but you know it contains footage from a Midgard lab underneath Southside. If they didn't utterly own the media… and you could convince someone to believe you, this would make a great news story.

But, as things stand, your best bet is watching it to see if anything sheds light on Midgard's activities in Southside.
Type Data (Quest)
Use (see below)

Sources

Recording footage in the Buried Lab

Uses

On closer examination, this recording was marked for deletion, but not cleared out yet. That might be promising.The recording picks up with two Midgard employees, one obviously a researcher and the other a security guard, arguing over the bleeding corpse of a young prisoner. They're both yelling themselves hoarse, although the recording balances the audio out, and gesturing animatedly.

It's a little hard to follow through all the crosstalk, but the researcher eventually admits he's just terrified of "Thrivaldi" finding out and telling Midgard. The guard concurs and they seem to calm down.

With a forced smile, the guard adds "and hey, at least we're fighting the good fight, right? I mean, these people never wanted to be poisoned, but we've got to find a way to cure them." He sets a reassuring hand on the researcher's shoulder.

"No." The researcher shakes his head slowly, showing the weight of exhaustion. "No, there's no good fight. Midgard isolated a compound… these people call it Eclipse. They're seeding the population… huge amounts of it."

Now that he's started talking, he doesn't seem likely to stop. "They'll lie to us… to everyone, but they're looking for something. A certain kind of reaction to the Eclipse, I think. That's where the most functional subjects go… there's another level of screening."

The cell door swings open, momentarily clipping into the camera's view and the recording ends.

Or, if you have already completed one of the four survivor quests and already suspect Special Projects?

On closer examination, this recording was marked for deletion, but not cleared out yet. That might be promising.The recording picks up with two Midgard employees, one obviously a researcher and the other a security guard, arguing over the bleeding corpse of a young prisoner. They're both yelling themselves hoarse, although the recording balances the audio out, and gesturing animatedly.

It's a little hard to follow through all the crosstalk, but the researcher eventually admits he's just terrified of "Thrivaldi" finding out and telling Midgard. The guard concurs and they seem to calm down.

With a forced smile, the guard adds "and hey, at least we're fighting the good fight, right? I mean, these people never wanted to be poisoned, but we've got to find a way to cure them." He sets a reassuring hand on the researcher's shoulder.

"No." The researcher shakes his head slowly, showing the weight of exhaustion. "No, there's no good fight. Midgard isolated a compound… these people call it Eclipse. They're seeding the population… huge amounts of it."

Now that he's started talking, he doesn't seem likely to stop. "Special Projects… it's overrun with them. They live and breathe Eclipse over there. We're just pawns… resources Special Projects can tell just enough to make useful."

"They're the ones who sweep in and take the dangerous subjects… and the functional ones. I don't know what they're doing, but they've been lying to us the whole time. We're not part of the solution…" He pauses for a moment, although whether he's choked up or expecting some danger is hard to pinpoint.

The cell door swings open, momentarily clipping into the camera's view and the recording ends.

Well, this is it. It should be enough to confirm Hel's suspicions.

You play the recording. It's black and white, not to mention a little grainy. You'd think a major corp could afford better cameras, but who knows?

Then:

The cell holds a disheveled man with the wasted features of someone who was recently athletic. His hands are behind his back and remain firmly there despite his straining as the door opens.

An older man wearing a lab coat walks in, dragging a chair behind, which calmly sits in. "All right. Let's talk about the docks again."

The prisoner slumps for a moment. "Fine… fine. Do you want me to tell you I don't see things there anymore? Will you let me go if you don't think I'm crazy?"

His interviewer sighs. "You're not crazy and we both know that. If you've stopped seeing things, that just means the treatments have been working and we can move to the next phase."

"Sorry to disappoint, then." He grimaces, displaying a mouthful of strangely well-kept teeth. "I still see them. The living lights. In my dreams… they're not just in the docks anymore. They're taking children."

The researcher makes him go over descriptions of the children, but none of them sound terribly familiar. Eventually he leaves the prisoner to his brooding, taking the chair with him.

The video cuts in while the cell's inhabitant is mid-scream. "… fucking sue! Get me a fucking lawyer! My parents will kill you!"

The screaming man is about college-aged, reinforced by a small pin on his torn lapel that could be from a fraternity. "Listen to me! Do… something…"

Your view is interrupted by the opening door, although it doesn't close again as you were expecting. No one enters the room far enough for you to see, but there's a cold voice. "Who do your parents work for?"

"Midgard, of course." The student responds, puffing out his chest slightly. The cold voice chuckles. "Yes. Who do you think signed the release forms, exactly?"

The door swings back closed without any ceremony. The man drops to his knees, sobbing something you can't quite make out.

A thin man that could be any of a hundred bums in Southside Park sits in one corner of the recorded room. A thick gauze bandage covers his eyes, with two damp spots marking where you would normally see them.

A twitchy man with a clipboard makes his way into the room and clears his throat politely. The bandaged man laughs almost kindly. "Don't worry doctor, I know you're there. But I appreciate the thought."

"Yes, well, then. That's what I'm here to ask you about. One of the… orderlies said you had… well, gouged your eyes out. Is there… something you'd like to talk about… I mean, you seemed to be doing so well."

"Talk about? Oh. Oh!" The bandaged man laughs again, a little less kindly. "No, no, no. This isn't some crazy… pluck my eyes eye to get rid of the visions thing, if that's what you're wondering. It's to protect you and, well, even the orderlies, if you want to call them that."

The doctor sighs, reluctant to even continue. "Protect us from what, exactly? Yourself?"

"Oh no, nothing like that. Like you said, I'm fine. But They can see through my eyes, you know. And what They can see, They can change. That executive with the bullet in his brain… no entry wound. Funny thing, that…"

The doctor stands, no longer sighing, but staring straight at his patient. "Alright. Who's They, then? The Four? Hear about them a lot from the less coherent patients. Or, I dunno, the Mafia? The Illuminati? Hell, the Freemasons, if they're even still around?"

Frowning slightly, the bandaged man, shakes his head. "Oh, no, you've got it all wrong. The Four will free Them, probably, from Midgard. And who are the Illuminati?"

The doctor switching back to his earlier stance, sighing. "Well, you seem to be alright for now, but if you decide you need to do anything else for our protection, ask me first. Alright?"

His patient cheerfully responds "you're the boss!" as the recording ends.

A young girl, perhaps eight or nine, sits in one corner of the cell wearing a buttoned shirt several sizes too large for her. She rocks back and forth, singing gibberish to the cadence of a lullaby.

It takes a few verses, but you recognize it… or at least part of it. It's similar to the invocation you learned to call the hounds.

The video crackles for a moment and she pauses her song. "Hello. I'm glad you came." She speaks almost lovingly, staring towards the center of the cell, although nothing seems to be there.

"The nice man next door said you keep here here and there there. Is that right? Is that why you keep helping us? I could use some help…" She pauses, still blankly gazing towards the empty space.

"They say I'm sick… so they keep giving me medicine. I didn't feel sick… but after last time, I'm not sure. They said they were giving me someone's blood… I'm not sure it helped." Her gaze drifts down, staring at her knees.

She pauses for almost a minute and you think you can see tears in her eyes. Finally, she nods and leans back.

A moment later, the front of her throat disappears, leaving a jagged wound. She remains strangely peaceful, her blood draining out as the video fades to static.

A pile of rags in the corner of the cell shifts slightly up and down, eventually stirring and resolving into a man wearing dozens of articles of ratty clothing. He stares up at the camera, grinning like an idiot.

He clears his throat, lapsing into a wracking cough. "Heh… well, I guess this is my last message. I hope it makes it to the Four."

"You know there isn't a Midgard. There are a dozen Midgards, nesting within one another. Don't think you can kill the monster by chopping off one head… two will just grow back. You need to choose your fights carefully."

The recording shows a blank-walled room containing a single, panicked man wearing tattered clothes that might once have been quite nice. His hair mostly covers his face, but one side has been ruined by deep scarring.

A guard loosely swinging a riot baton enters the room, followed by an older man in a lab coat. Both the older man and the prisoner wait for the other to speak, ignoring the guard.

Eventually, the scarred young man pipes up. "If you're supposed to be doctors, why does this look so much like a prison?"

The older man chuckles. "Oh, I am a doctor. Graduated from Metroplex University, as a matter of fact, back before the Incident. But most doctors' patients aren't quite as dangerous as mine." You can't see his facial expression, but there's no kindness in his voice, whatever he's saying.

"I'm here to talk about this herald of yours. It seems she's still missing and might be in danger." He pauses, waiting for the scarred man to speak.

He laughs instead with the rasping edge you usually associate with lifelong smokers. "In danger? Yeah, that's likely. Tell you what… if I find out anything, you'll be the first person I don't tell. Deal?"

The doctor shakes his head slowly. "Well, I'll be in next week then. It's a shame the cooperative patients keep bumping you out of the treatment schedule." The scarred man glares at him and the recording drops to static a moment later.

The recording begins with a man in a strangely modified straight jacket being shoved into the room. He rushes back towards the door, only to be blocked by several Midgard security guards shouting for reinforcements.

One of them shouts something about "for your own good" and "treatment" before falling to the ground, a ragged hole in his throat. A thin tentacle or stinger retreats back into the straight jacket as the man wearing it grins manically.

A moment later, as the guards try to withdraw, the straight jacket explodes to shreds as three tentacles tear out of it, overwhelming another guard. The rest retreat, slamming the door behind them.

The prisoner looks up at the camera for a moment, then the recording ends in a blur of static.

A doctor stands in the cell, examining an unmoving man. She flickers a light from one of the man's eyes to the other.

She sighs and begins draining the contents of a vial into a syringe. As she finishes, the door swings open, briefly clipping into your view.

She barely has a chance to scream "I told you never to bring drones into the cells!" before a hound drone fluidly leaps forward, its face ripping open into a jagged mouth and tearing into the patient. It only takes a moment before the blood-spattered drone winds back down and moves mechanically back to the door.

After that, it's all over but the incoherent screaming at the stammered apologies.

A bony man in a straitjacket sits quietly in the cell being recorded. The door swings open, clipping into the camera's view, as a uniformed guard makes his way in.

The guard approaches him, rapping a riot baton into his open hand. "So, the doctors say you're holding out. You think I might be able to persuade you?"

Without even the slightest sight of fear, the bound man glares at the guard. The riot baton clatters to the floor as the guard's hand begins cracking and bleeding, as though it's being eaten away by an invisible fire.

The rest of the video captures him collapsing to the ground as his flesh is eaten away, eventually leaving his uniform and a pile of blackened bones.

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