May 8th

Infuriating. Perl had to cancel our meeting due to the survey debacle. The whole area is locked down until they can transport the sample to Sector C for proper analysis. I’ve never been to Sector C and have no interest in ever going. Too many young faces messing with the only equipment that actually competes with us in terms of power consumption and quakes. 

I pushed past a few other researchers to look at the sample through the glass and got a horrible ringing sensation in my head for the trouble. Those crystals always give me a headache, but this one was unbearable. It’s like I get motion sickness just standing still around those things. The idea that I’m experiencing a sensation not yet cataloged by human science is a scary thought. How possible is it that exposure to one could immediately kill someone? Implausible and paranoid, but impossible to answer. 

I set aside some time to go over the prototype with Perl today, which is obviously a bust. Read a bit more instead--almost done The Interpretation of Dreams, a thought I can’t decide if I’m happy about or not. A quote that’s stuck with me: “Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions.” I came here chasing DoD contracts, and here I am sitting on the edge of the most groundbreaking science facility in history, surrounded by teleporters and aliens and portals to an alien world. Have I adapted? A week ago, I would’ve said yes. A week ago, I said heimlich. So much feels different now.

Reminded of an anecdote. 

Dr. Louis Donaldson was the first researcher to welcome me to Sector F. On the first day, he came right up, shook my hand, and told me I showed “great promise.” Those were his words, and they’ve always stuck with me.

We worked together for awhile. He was interested in my weapons research and I was interested in his studies into the xenofauna. This was before any of the advanced biological labs had been built, so scientists working with anything classified tended to do it in the Lambda Labs. He insisted on overseeing every dissection personally. When they found a particular organ they couldn’t identify, it went into cold storage for later analysis. If they were able to construct a reasonable theory as to its process in the body, Louis would jar the particular instrument and place it on his desk. I saw that desk a few times—he could list off the known properties of each and every one without fail. Nothing gave him a larger sense of pride than adding new jars to that desk. It engulfed it, eventually. He wouldn’t even move them, just bought a new desk.

Louis wasn’t in the lab one day. I asked around, checked his dorm, nothing. The accident report came in a week later: Lack of Caution Around a Specimen. They brought something back: A spore that gestates on any down-facing surface. Louis was a genius, but overexcitable and not particularly careful even at the best of times. It ate him and they cordoned it off to study the movement of his remains through the creature’s digestive system. I saw the report. It vomited out what was left of him a week later.

I saw a poster the other day. They hung it up not long after the accident report. It’s a breakdown of the biological structure of that spore—I think they’ve nicknamed it a barnacle now. At the top, in bold letters, it reads “Cirripedia donaldsonia.”

He would’ve found it funny. 

Need to sleep early tonight. I hope Perl can visit soon.

I miss my friend.

Signed,
Dale R