Broadcast warning. By order of Vox Sanctum Gloriana
Administrative Chorus, listeners are advised
that the following testimony of Field Technician
Marlae Kett, Hive Infrastructure Maintenance
Corps, has been classified under Civic Transparency
Category 3 -"Incidents that are definitely not
continuing, please stop asking." Filed under Emergency
Maintenance Order 771C, Unauthorized Harmonic
Machinery, Priority Moderate. The material you
are about to hear may include descriptions of
infrastructure exhibiting unscheduled behaviour,
technical anomalies not yet approved for public
understanding, mentions of ventilation systems
acting beyond their mandated emotional range,
observational data currently awaiting interpretation,
clarification and possibly the invention of new
terminology. Residents are reminded that any
resemblance between the events described and
situations in your own HAB block is pure coincidence
and therefore not eligible for complaint forms.
Reporting symptoms such as being absorbed by
the walls, synchronised breathing or the ducts
assisting in household tasks is considered pre
-emptive misinformation and may result in a brief,
friendly, corrective interview. Any desire to
investigate, interpret or personally empathize
with the phenomena described is strongly discouraged.
Curiosity is not a civic virtue. Please maintain
a compliant posture. Please maintain an untroubled
expression. Please maintain the understanding
that everything is under control even if the
infrastructure disagrees. The following testimony
is released for public reassurance. You will
feel reassured. This is mandatory. I wasn't supposed
to be there. Not really. The order came down
from some audit division clerk. Said there was
resonant interference in SectorKappa 3, sub
-basement 297, causing power fluctuations. Probably
another hymnal feedback loop or a loose lumen
coil. Happens all the time. I bought the usual
kit. Spanner, sanctified oil, portable prayer
generator, standard procedure. The first thing
I noticed was how quiet the sector was. Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that's waiting for a sound
to happen. Then I found the growths. Not corrosion,
not fungus, but something halfway between both.
Veins of it, pulsing under the plating. The light
flickered, and every time it came back on, the
veins had moved. The relay housing had been pushed
out of alignment. When I reached in to check
the junction, something grabbed the spanner.
Not hard, not violent, just helpful, like it
wanted to hold it with me. I pulled back, muttered
the litany of purity in reflex, and there was
a hum. Not loud, not enough to notice. You could
feel it. Through the floor, through your chest
cavity, like standing too close to a reactor
core, but gentler. I tried to calm the foreman.
The line buzzed. For a second, I swear, it hummed
the work hymn. My own voice layered under it
like I'd already sung along. Then I saw the thing
inside the vent. It looked like a circuit relay.
Sort of, but semi-organic. Round. Ribbed. Cables
feeding into it like veins. It had texture. I
don't know. Too many patterns. Like skin learning
to be metal. I went to cut the power, but the
indicator light changed colour, blue to gold.
I've never seen a lumen do that. Then it started
to open. Not like a hat, but like a flower. A
mechanical flower, blooming slow. Inside, I could
see the hum, like light that moved wrong. I felt
calm. Completely calm. I think I dropped my tools.
My hands didn't feel right. Like they weren't
mine anymore. The hum was in my breath now, coming
out of me. I started saying prayers I don't remember
learning. Something about belonging and becoming.
And new hands for the same work. I woke up six
hours later, everything fixed, power reading
stable, the things gone, but the plating where
it was, it's warm. I put in a report, of course.
Form 771-C, triple stamped. No response. But
every time I walk past that duct, I hear it again.
The hum. Waiting for me. to finish my shift.
Vox Sanctum Gloriana is an Evil Lighthouse production.