The Weather Protocol
They always asked for the weather before they opened the door.
It was a protocol, one of Herchel's inventions. A coded phrase to screen out mimics, mistakes, or worse.
The door slid open. A face peered through, it was the face of a young woman with brown skin, her frizzy hair was tied in a bun, making her an air of seriousness even if her face was haggard, smearing with fatigue.
« How is the weather? »
Dr. Herchel Thatcher didn't look up from the VHS. He was messing around with the magnetic tapes, flinching as they began to glitch slightly.
« Sunny » Herchel said « With occasional screaming »
The door swung shut behind the woman.
« It's Laine » She assured, entering the lab with a clipboard grasped like a shield. « Rook is still praying, Doss is attempting to get the CRT monitors functioning again. And Vey had indicated that the statistics had returned. »
« Of course it is » Herchel grumbled. « It's Tuesday, strangely these creatures are more numerous this day »
Laine scoffed, but her eyes didn't join in. They were shadowed, ringed in sleepless black. They all appeared that way at Outpost Theta. Paranoia was more than just a secondary effect there. It was everywhere. It seeped into the air ducts, took up residence in the cracks of your brain.
Herchel leaned back, pinching the bridge of his nose behind smudged glasses. His lab coat was stained and crumpled, over a kevlar vest that no longer felt like it didn't belong. His recorder waited on the side of the desk, blinking a dim red light, seeming to be filled with his thoughts.
He clicked on the recorder.
> « Audio Log #52: Day 319. Choir-3 sample continues to behave strangely. It doesn't decay. It doesn't rot. It doesn't even breathe. It just...waits. Watches. I've decided it is partly alive. I've also decided that I don't care anymore »
He clicked off the recorder.
The outpost was quiet, other than the occasional click of Laine's pen or the soft whine of the backup generator coming on again. A soft static noise hissed over the speakers in one of the corners of the room. The kind of static that meant something was wrong
« Vey is going to have an absolute meltdown if the F.A start using his monitors again » Whispered Laine.
« Then Vey should have held with his LCD » Herchel said, rubbing his temples. « CRT glass stores memory. They informed that. »
Laine said no more, and Herchel didn't ask. They all heard things now.
PROJECT MALLEUS never officially existed. To every database that continued to function, it didn't. The Science Section was supposedly researching aerial psychoacoustic-audio-related effects in high-flying environments. But those who survived their first weeks at Outpost Theta knew otherwise.
There was something in the static.
They called them False Angels or F.A to abbreviate. Creatures that replicated divinity with uncaring and uncanny precision. They sang in non-breathing voices. Their faces were as capable of serene calm as of raw horror. Smiled with their uniforms teeth. Blazed in snapshots but vanished in mirrors. They did not attack in the way that humans envisioned. They did not slash or claw or even bellow.
They came in.
Into your body. Your voice. Your mind, if you weren't careful. If you thought a little too hard, if you listened too closely.
« They don't break in » Herchel once explained to a new recruit. « They wait for you to open the door »
Team Theta had once numbered twelve. They were now five.
And even that was generous.
Later in that evening, Herchel was in his office, watching an old videotape labeled « AGARes_01.VHS » The screen was black at first, grainy, and distorted. Then, a movement. A tall figure appeared. He smiled as he handed a cup of coffee to someone. The smile, it was genuine and warm.
Suddenly, the tape stuttered.
The man's blue eyes were now completely black like coal.
Herchel stared at the screen, immobile. His hand almost twitched to the pause button, but he did not press it. Instead, he started the video again and again before the corrupted part.
« Agares...my love » He breathed « What they have done to you. » His voice cracking, his fingers twitching toward the screen, the hum of the static swelling around him.
A knock cut through the silence.
« Herchel? » Doss slowly opened the door. « Vey says the monitors are malfunctioning again. One of them showed...well, it showed you. »
Herchel blinked
« Me? »
« Yeah. Just...standing in the hallway, smiling, but the timestamp was from three hours ago. You've been in the all day. »
« Did the footage have shadows? »
« No. »
« Burn it »
---------
As Doss left, Herchel finally reached for the recorder again.
> « Audio Log #53. The statics noises are close. Agares appeared twice this week. Once on a tape, and then in my dream when I fell asleep on my desk. It's never in person. I don't know if it's him or just what's left. Either way...I'm still wearing our wedding rings.»
He looked down at his hand. The gold bands on his two fingers ring were creased, smoothed from his constant fiddling, a habit he'd been unable to break.
« The others think I'm compromised. Maybe they're right. But if there is even a sliver of him left...God help me...I have to find it. »
Click.
