12/09/25 - Intercepted Message
Janice, I'm sharing this with you because you're the only person I can trust to keep this to yourself. Grab a snack and get comfortable, because this is going to be a lot.
I preface this by saying I'm still shocked OEA's showrunners are being so dismissive of studying KB and her link to Somewhere Out There and the void in general. I still think Wilson made me the lead of her monitoring team as some sort of punishment, given how isolated our base is, but that's besides the point.
I want to run something by you to make sure I don't sound totally insane.
I read through the content of E12's recovered tablet yesterday. Outside of being an interesting look at a person's cognitive state before succumbing to void radiation (the cleanup crew is going to have fun hunting down two new void beasts, I suppose), it's helped me form a hypothesis that could have catastrophic implications if proven true.
We know from prior test subjects that void influence can manifest as static in one's mind. We know from B3 and now E12 that, though it may be indecipherable at first, the noise can supposedly become more clear and coherent until the subject transforms (or goes brain dead, in B3's case).
Both subjects who experienced this mentioned that the static was talking to them, like the void itself was contacting them directly. It told E12 of the OEA's goals with shocking accuracy, and it was attempting to get B3 to break quarantine and escape back to Earth.
My first question to you: why would the void, who has thrown an entire sub-dimension's worth of junk away because it no longer wanted it, be using its failures to communicate to whoever can hear the echoes of it?
And is it really the void? As far as we know, it can only have power over its own dominion within itself. Once it ejects the rejects, it should no longer have control over them, and I would assume that includes being able to "talk" through them. However, we only know this because KB said as much; she could be as fallible in her knowledge as the rest of us.
This begs further questions, like if the radiation itself has some sort of separate sentience, or if there's no thought behind it at all; if the voice is simply how the human brain makes sense of something that doesn't exist in our world.
But this also got me thinking -- KB states that she hears noises that build up in her head, and when they get to be too much, she has no choice but to release them. When she has those episodes, the noises she emits could loosely be defined as music, but it still incorporates things that sound like screaming, or metal scraping, or steam, or -static-.
As a creation of the void, its residue clings to her as it does to everything else in SOT, but I think that radiation is affecting her at the same time. It's manifesting as the same static that others have heard, but she's interoperating it in her own way, and is able to project it outwards like a speaker.
Who knows how many previous expeditions of hers we've missed, but since we've started tracking her outings to Earth, we can pick up void traces in the places she's been. It's in such low doses and dissipates quickly enough that it doesn't pose a threat, but she's been staying out for longer and longer, building up a tolerance to our reality, which at some point, will hypothetically give the radiation more time to settle in permanently. (2’s findings all but confirm that with their small-items test. If things taken from Somewhere lasted longer than 24 hours in our world before liquifying and going dormant, the radiation would have enough time to “plant its roots”, so to speak).
From the last time I was able to communicate with KB directly, she told me she hasn't tried talking to anyone when she leaves because she's scared she'll, well, scare them. That she's practicing talking with us since she's so used to being alone, and she finds herself freezing up at the prospect of being perceived outside of her own familiar environment.
I told her that keeping her distance from Earth was a good idea for now, that she shouldn't push herself to go out -- but she's very determined to see more of our world, despite her fears. Eventually, she's going to work up the courage to make contact with humanity. Eventually, she's going to share those noises in her head with the outside world, which could lead to mass void contamination, or worse -- you saw what happened during her meltdown last month.
RnD can't work fast enough to find a way to contain her, or at the very least, stitch up any fabric tears that we can't lock down ourselves. If they found a way to stabilize bits of SOT and a method of sedating void beasts, then surely we can figure out something to reign her in, right? Words can only work for so long.
But this is where I'm going to sound insane Jan, if I haven't already.
What if this was all part of the void's plan? What if, much like the test subject's suits, KB was made faulty on purpose?
Hear me out.
The void is a god of its own dimension, and thusly has full control of everything within. When it casts out its creations beyond its barrier, those items take a piece of the void with them in the form of a lingering aura. It can see and speak through these creations due to that residue of itself, but it can't directly control them anymore; it can only observe through and whisper.
One day, it sees that there is a tear in reality between our world and Somewhere Out There, but of course, it can't go through it itself, and neither can its mindless creations. So, it ejects sentient beings into Somewhere, hoping that they will go through in its stead. They carry the essence of the void while being able to think for themselves; they can interact with what the void cannot. It may not be able to control them like pawns being so far out of its reach, but they will always carry a part of it with them, wherever they go.
They carry the trace. The signal. The radiation. The interference. (I'm starting to realize how many different names we've given this phenomena. We really need to settle on one.)
Now, why the void wouldn't just say "hey, your mission is to go see what that Earth thing is all about" before it pitched them into another dimension is beyond me. I have no idea why it would let them think their god hates them instead, unless that's supposed to be their motivation to find belonging in our society.
But it backfired; almost all of the outcasts that live in SOT just want to keep to themselves, and ultimately, return back home to the dark.
Except KB. KB actively wants to leave, to meet others, to be amongst humanity, even if she isn't fully ready to take those steps yet; ultimately she wants to find the acceptance and companionship that the void withheld from her. Worryingly, she's mentioned bringing others into SOT if she can't fit in on the outside, and I mean -- every test expedition that’s been sent in shows us why that won't turn out well.
All of that being said, if this theory proves true, KB being considered "defective" is horribly ironic; she's the only one doing exactly what the void wanted her to do.
I know that sounds incredibly convoluted and like I'm talking in circles, so let me get to the point:
Jan, I think the void wants to break through into our reality and envelope it so that it can expand its territory -- take over Earth as its god -- and KB is being used as the medium to do so. She's the one that will spread the void's influence. She's its harbinger.
I admit, I am making a lot of assumptions with this theory, and the big hole in it I've yet to patch is that, if I'm correct, surely Somewhere Out There would be sufficiently "contaminated" enough to allow the void full control over it, right? It wouldn't need to do this odd sort of workaround with the outcasts acting in its stead?
But maybe -- and I just now thought of this -- maybe Somewhere Out There is infinite in its dimensions. No matter how much of itself the void spits out, its essence will never have a high enough concentration that the void can fully manifest its power.
But Earth is finite; it is a planet with a definitive surface area. Eventually, with enough time and patience, the void can cover it all.
God, what if Somewhere Out There is just a stepping stone to get to its real target: us?
If that does come to pass, what happens to the unprotected expedition teams would happen to all of us on a world-wide scale. It would be a mass-extinction event for humanity, with maybe, -maybe- a lucky few successfully being converted, if the other departments actually find a way to pass over the "void beast" and "brain death" hurtle that comes with succumbing to the signal. And, realistically, how many hazmat suits are there to go around, and how many underground bunkers are there to hide in?
Anyways Jan, I'm halfway to hoping you're gonna tell me this is crazy and I'm overthinking this, that SOT and the void are just two more little pocket dimensions amongst a dozen others and we'll avert disaster like every other group has. Honestly I think I'm working myself up getting this all written down -- I've been awake since yesterday thinking about this and I apparently drank a pot of coffee that I don't remember having. Not in my right mind, as it were.
Just don't let anyone else know about this, not yet. If my theory gets to the board before I have more time to solidify it, I genuinely think those crazy bastards would encourage KB to interact with the public just to see what would happen, maybe even provoke her into a meltdown. I bet they'd be fine with a voided Earth, as long as they somehow benefit from it.
I'm going to try to get a few hours of sleep, my hands are shaking and my tinnitus is kicking up again like a mother; I think sleep deprivation makes it worse. I'll see you in-person probably the day after tomorrow for the usual meeting, but feel free to reply earlier if you want.
See you when I see you, and thanks for listening to me ramble.
- Sam