8. No sacrifice too great
Chapter 8 of Camera Obscura, written by Matt Boothman after Samantha Leigh
Day 219
I have come to a conclusion.
Curzon Labs is caught in a snare. Auditing bodies battened onto every data-displaying surface. Finance howling in the halls. Funds dwindling while the IRB makes it impossible to get observations that could lead to results that could let us loosen the snare.
There’s no loosening the snare. There’s no saving the leg that’s caught in it. We have to gnaw it off.
Don’t panic! I can see how some of you could have made the leap, given my recent experiences with detachable limbs – but I didn’t mean literally.
An example of what I mean:
I’ve been trying to rearrange with participant ID $PTOLOG (yes, for a whole month), but they’re only free on Tuesdays. But the facilities are booked out every Tuesday from now until the blood moon drowns in the sea of ink, according to the lab calendar (yes, I’ve tried different sulphur compounds, they all bubble and wail the exact same thing when tossed on the parchment, just in different colours and accents).
We’re bogged down, that’s the problem. The calendar is always jammed solid. The paperwork backlog stretches back practically to ancient $PTOLOG’s birth. I’m spending all my time doing admin instead of science. The auditing bodies won’t leave because they still haven’t got through everything they want to review.
We need a clean slate. Scorched earth. Clear the calendar; anyone who cares enough will re-book. Write off old expenses and reconcile the project budget as it actually stands today. Make it so it’s slimmer pickings for the auditing bodies and give ourselves a fresh start.
Down a limb and haemorrhaging, yes, but free at least.
Edited to add: I am specifically not saying “down with procedure”. You all know I’ve gone to considerable trouble to avoid turning into the sort of person who says things like that. Please don’t even insinuate that I would ever say that ESPECIALLY while the IRB is scouring the network for any excuse to shutter and subsume us!
Hot tip for any other labs forced to resort to this kind of hard reset: don’t leave updating the consent forms for last. Wrestling the outdated copies into the salt bucket to be purged is an ordeal at the best of times. We’ve all got the paper cuts to prove it. Believe me, you don’t want to try doing it while also fending off auditing bodies.
I think they got wind of what I was trying to do. I don’t know why they were so hell bent on stopping me. I was trying to reduce their workload! I had to code a double-layer exclusion zone around the purge bucket on the fly to give myself space to work.
But it’s done. Auditing bodies are already starting to peel and crumble off the monitors and the bookshelves. It’s over. I think it might actually be over.
can you read this?
is anyone there?
is this real? am I dreaming?
is this some temporal recursion nonsense?
could still be dreaming. fairly sure I dozed off in the lab. exhausted after everything
But the intercom woke me up. couldnt understand the voice on the other end so I went out to see who it was (who you were?)
and instead of reception on the other side of the door was home. my old home (our old home?)
front door locked behind me only darkness out the windows
I searched for an exit (searching for you?) maybe for hours until I saw you in the mirror over the fireplace
just my own reflection moving and catching my eye I thought but then you waved at me (did you wave?)
can you read what I write on my phone like this?
you have my attention all right
I’m tired what do you want from me
why won’t you leave me alone. why wouldnt she
I’m not sorry I killed her. and if she really was future me then she must have known that was going to happen and didnt do anything to stop me so really its her fault
so she was future me and youre what, parallel me?
is this where we split, go separate ways. you go become her and I get to be me
give me something. nod. shake your head. another wave. flip the bird I dont care
okay Im going to break this mirror now better do something if you dont want that to happen
Camera Obscura is an actual play of Outliers, a single-player journalling game by Samantha Leigh, based on The Wretched by Chris Bissette, and published by the Far Horizons Co-Op.
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