goneawayworld | DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call...The Twilight Zone.

LINKS
OOC FAMILY INFO/WORKSHIPPING
PLOT PART 1
NIGHT EVENT
NETWORK POST

MAP

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Darlington High School: The town's high school, home to various cliques of teenagers, and containing secrets that can only be discovered after dark.

Sheriff's Station: The sheriff seems like a typical sitcom sheriff, neighborly and helpful, but the sheriff's station has carefully guarded files that might be of interest to the New Hires.

Abandoned Factory: In such a sunshiney town, why is there an abandoned building?

Library: Information about the town can be found here, including a section with town records.

TV Studio: The possible source of strange broadcasts that can be found on TVs in Darlington.

???: A completely unassuming house.

Abandoned Mall: Another abandoned building, and one that's outside of time. This shopping mall is a decade or two early for the time period in the sitcom. Perhaps something useful can be found inside.

Murnjgod Appliances: The TV's in the window of Murnjgod Appliances sometimes display cryptic messages that might offer clues or puzzles to be deciphered.

DETAILS

The first night and day don't leave them much freedom. The sitcom scenarios keep them occupied periodically during the day and evening and then whatever brought them there dragged them "home" the first night around 10 pm and then battened down every door and window of the building they were each in.

The second day is much the same. Forced scenarios, some free time in between. It's only at night fall that something relaxes, like the world is letting out a sigh. There is a sense of pervasive fatigue like whatever was pushing them through this has just exhausted itself trying to control all of them at once.

That means the doors and windows stay unlocked that night, allowing some of them to move around.

The streets are empty - emptier than streets often are in reality. There's no one driving home from a late shift or walking their dog. There are no barking dogs for that matter, either, despite them sometimes being visible in yards around the neighborhood.

Sitcoms tend to move to interior settings at night. So the streets are eerily quiet and empty. At 10 pm on the second night, instead of dragging them home and trapping them, every light in town other than their own house lights and the street lamps turns off simultaneously.

Their doors lock once but almost as if it's for show, a bluff to make them think they're trapped again. They can be unlocked and opened this time. The houses all have flashlights, and sheds full of tools that can maybe be used to break into places.

It's time to get to the bottom of this.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Honestly, I'd rather stay as far away as we can. I dunno how close you gotta be for the Stuff to latch on..." Saturday is still trying to keep her mind blank, which is tricky when you're also thinking and speaking. "Grab the dimensions off this and let's do a quick visual count, then let's check the offices and head upstairs?"

Wrath does a quick walk around the container. She can compare how big it is to various models of tanks she knows since she has clear memories of what they look like at different distances, and that'll tell her approximate dimensions.

"Okay, got it." She tells Saturday a pretty accurate assessment of the container's dimensions. "Get the count and we'll hit the stairs. I'll take point."

"There's some offices here, too. We're gonna wanna circle back and hit them before we go into the undercarriage." Where the danger, if any, is almost certain to be. People are predictable, and monsters even more so.

Saturday scans the pile, taking count the way her father taught her. How big's the space, how big is what you're counting, divide and count it up. If asked, she would say indignitly that it's not math, she's terrible at math, it's just looking properly.

It is, however, totally math.

"...man, I hope they're not all packed full." The number is an alarming one, if they are. She shares it.

"Head up. I got your six."

"Understood." Wrath moves up to take the front, heading for the stairs that go up. The terrain is tricky, but she also doesn't rush. At this point, they're better off being slower and not stumbling onto something terrible. She holds her crowbar at the ready.

The upper floor is...glitchy and there's a hum from a machine in the center of the room. Whenever the lights on the machine briefly flicker off, the room flickers too, flashing to the black and white of the TV show and back again. Almost like the machine is keeping that area in color and in the real world.

There's a lab of some kind inside, with strange equipment that has purposes that are hard to discern. There are broken monitors that are all black except for one. It's hard to see what's on the screen but it looks almost like the back view of a kneeling humanoid form hunched over. Broken flood lights can be seen around it, like they were once operational but no longer are.

There's no more detail than that.

Some of the lab - like the monitor - is still drawing energy from a large generator in the corner.

Most of the paperwork has gotten shredded in a big shredder, like things went to shit and the people in the lab were trying to destroy evidence of their involvement.

There's a memo on the floor, one of the only ones that slipped away and survived.

Research Site Alpha

Request for early closure of the Project: denied.

Project: Desilu has been deemed an essential project due to potential to find an alternate form of ███ production. Early results show too much promise to shut the project down.

Continue acquisition of D-class subjects from wastelands and placement of subjects in reality overwrite scenario. Upon mental adjustment to reality overwrite, continue reporting on their perceptual influence on un-reified matter upon introduction to reality overwrite zone. Collect results of any reified matter for analysis. Monitor Anomalous Entity JRG-034 for any changes in behavior or changes in reality overwrite potential.

Close project, terminate subjects' volunteer terms, destroy evidence, and evacuate only in case of breach of reality overwrite field.

There is no name on the letterhead. Just a symbol.

Saturday sucks in a breath at the lab equipment, and the flickering console.

"Can you take a look at that?" she gestures, nodding towards the gear. "I'm more likely to break it - maybe there's files?"

The memo, when found, doesn't exactly surprise her.

"Great. So this is some kind of abandoned experiment, went out of control or something?" She studies the logo. "Creepy logo. Don't like this. Hey, is there any way to tell where that monitor is streaming from?"

Wrath doesn't like any of this. Labs give her a bad feeling even if she can't explain why, entirely. Still, she nods and goes to look at the machinery, though it's not something she has any kind of expertise in, either. "Why would you break it?"

She examines the monitor, trying to get a sense of what kind of place the picture is coming from. But other than that... "I don't really know much about computer stuff at all. I had a friend who was an AI and he used to be in charge of that." Delta could have probably figured out a lot about these things.

There's no way to get a closer look at the being but it suddenly moves - only just a light shift where it sits.

The movement helps give a sense of scale because of a shoulder briefly blocking a broken flood light behind it.

It's quite possible, whatever this thing is, that it's huge.

Otherwise there's nothing else useful to be found in the abandoned upstairs lab.

"I got kind of a curse with machines. Anything that uses computers doesn't like me."

She leans over the monitor, whistling and careful not to touch it. "Big boy."

"Oh, that makes sense." Well, it doesn't make sense as such, but Wrath has seen a lot of things that don't make sense, and they don't have to.

"I don't like is."

Well, it doesn't matter what she doesn't like. She's seen a lot of stuff she doesn't like at all. Best to just focus on doing the mission.

"If that's everything, let's check the office downstairs and see what kind of bullshit it under the floor."

She'll lead through the door if Saturday is ready.

"Not a lot here to like." Saturday pauses to fold the memo and flip it in her pocket. "Can you get a couple pics of the room an' send them to my comm 'fore we go?"

"Yeah, sure." Wrath gets her own comm out and starts taking pictures of everything that looks like it could mean something. She even takes a picture of the monitor, though she knows a lot of times those don't turn out well. And she's able to send them to Saturday easily since she's one of the most recent people she's talked to.

"That should do it."

"All right. Once more unto the abyss or however that goes." She executes a surprisingly perfect courtly bow. "After you."

Wrath takes point again with a sharp nod, leading the way back down the stairs. The first stop is the office area, while skirting all of the containers as much as humanly possible.

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL - INVESTIGATION

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