The MiskatonTech Data Center

Fourteenth Althom resident interviewed regarding the shuttered MiskatonTech data center.

Bethany S., 39, lives at 347 Westfall St. approximately 2.6 miles southwest of the data center. She gave her permission to have this conversation recorded - she specified only on an analog recording device - which I have then summarized here.

As we sat down for an interview in her kitchen (most major appliances have been removed or are ancient), she immediately offered that she had been a vocal proponent of the data center and its construction.

When asked what she had hoped the data center would bring to the area, she cited the excitement over the initial investment, the creation of high-skilled tech jobs, and the national exposure. She had also been a fan of the company and its founder, Pieter Rusk, for quite some time.

When asked about the collapse of any such investment, the accidents and deaths that occurred during construction, the tax exemptions and loopholes that kept revenue out of the city’s hands, and the strain that the data center put on the already aging energy infrastructure - as well as the subsequent split up and sale of MiskatonTech and all of its assets after the disappearance of its enigmatic founder - she paused and said, well, at least it put them on the map.

When asked if she regrets her initial support for the data center, she said flatly, no.

When asked if she linked any of the misfortunes that befell her and her family to MiskatonTech and the data center, she said, no. She blamed their hardships on the pandemic, the various recessions that followed, as well as the vaccine regimen and the poisons pushed into their food supply by the food and pharmaceutical industries.

When asked when her daughter, Millie, 13, first began to exhibit symptoms she gave approximate dates that I noted coincide generally with the data center breaking ground.

When asked what the early symptoms were, she said she noticed a sharp increase in irritability during the daytime as well as trouble sleeping through the night, waking up with frequent, convulsive night terrors. She originally attributed the former to the latter and noted that several of her daughter’s peers were exhibiting similar behaviors at the time. Drug use was thoroughly investigated among the girls but ultimately ruled out.

When asked if there were any odd behaviors during the day, Bethany describes Millie appearing often distracted and distant, and that Bethany would catch her staring at the walls or standing with her head cocked to one side like she was listening to something Bethany could not hear and would become angry when interrupted.

She demonstrates the head cock.

When asked if there were any objects or areas in the house that seemed to capture Millie’s attention, Bethany answered that she would often find Millie staring into lightbulbs, running water or the power outlets. I asked her to point out some of the places.

When asked when symptoms began to worsen, she mentioned one night finding Millie standing in the middle of the kitchen in front of the microwave with the microwave door open. Bethany stated that her daughter’s eyes had been partially rolled back into her head and her eyelids were fluttering, but that she had been totally unresponsive and could not be shaken awake. After several unsuccessful attempts to wake her daughter, she stated she then turned to shut the microwave door.

At this point, Bethany reached for her coffee. Both of her hands were visibly shaking. She lifted the mug up at her mouth and held it there for some time. I waited until she was finished before we continued.

When asked what happened when she attempted to shut the door, Bethany said Mille’s eyes had snapped open and she had lunged at her, screaming, and attempted to shove Bethany's head into the microwave.

When asked if there was anything comprehensible in what her daughter was screaming, Bethany said, no, she didn’t think so. When asked about the incident the next day, Mille had told her she’d been listening to “the shimmering” behind the door.

When asked if she had further elaborated on what “the shimmering” was or if Bethany had heard anything herself, she answered to both questions, no. She said when her husband, Alex, had come downstairs and pulled Millie off of her, she’d stood and almost without thinking closed the microwave door.

When asked if anything happened once the door was shut, Bethany said Millie had immediately collapsed onto the floor.

When asked if there were other incidents of sleepwalking, Bethany said, yes. She stated that they became more frequent and that they had begun to take Millie to a sleep specialist.

When asked if that had helped, Bethany said emphatically, no.

When asked to describe a few more incidents, Bethany said that they had begun to find Mille wandering around outside of the house at nighttime. They’d added locks and bolts to the inside of the doors but that did little to deter Millie from walking outside.

When asked if they had tried anything else to curb the sleepwalking, Bethany said she and her husband had begun staying up in shifts to watch over their daughter and guide her back to bed when she sleepwalked.

When asked when the next notable incident had occurred, Bethany stated, late September. Bethany stated that during one of her husband’s shifts watching Millie at night, she had awoken to hear him yelling her name from the driveway. She had come down to find both Mille and her husband struggling on the ground, Mille dripping wet, babbling incoherently, and clawing toward a large puddle in the middle of their driveway. Bethany added that her husband had both arms wrapped around Millie’s legs and was struggling to hold her in place.

When asked if it had been raining, Bethany paused and looked at me strangely, then finally said, no.

When asked if this was when her husband had acquired his injuries, Bethany nodded and said that when she had come outside he was already bleeding from several scratches and gouges on his face, including one that went across his right eye. It would later become infected and the eye would have to be removed. 

When asked how her husband described the incident, he had said he must have only nodded off for a moment, but when he found Millie again she had been face down in the driveway with her head completely submerged in the puddle, gurgling and thrashing about like she was having a seizure.

When asked what had made her stop, Bethany said she wasn’t sure. She said she had lain across Millie’s body to try to hold her in place and that the episode had gone on for several more minutes before Millie suddenly went limp and they were able to carry her back inside and call an ambulance.

When asked if the puddle had still been there when the ambulance arrived, Bethany said, no, it must have soaked back into the ground.

When asked if that was the last time Millie slept at home, Bethany said, yes. She stated that her husband’s eye began to get progressively worse, forcing him to stay at home and miss work with debilitating headaches. After about a week and a half of this, he had lost his job, and they had started a crowdfunding campaign to help pay for their mounting medical expenses. That was when they had caught the attention of Oculorum, one of the medical/biotech subsidiaries of MiskatonTech, which specialized in advanced sight eye prostheses.

Bethany expressed her profound gratitude for Oculorum’s involvement, stating that the company had paid for her husband’s entire procedure including the cost of the replacement eye. She credited the media attention the surgery had garnered for the continued support their crowdfunding campaign still received, and that it was almost entirely covering the costs for Millie’s ongoing care.

When asked if she or her husband had any initial concerns about the experimental procedure or prosthetic, she said, no.

When asked if they had been aware of the prosthetic’s Connected Sight and experimental adaptive machine learning capabilities, she said, yes.

When asked if they had any concerns about the recordings the eye was sending back to Oculorum, she laughed and told me privacy was for the rich.

When asked if her husband had exhibited any violent behaviors before the procedure, she shifted uncomfortably and said, no, not since he had gotten sober, but added that the whole ordeal had been hard on the both of them and that he had started drinking again after 17 years of sobriety and that it had put a strain on their relationship.

When asked if she had considered a divorce or separation, she said, no.

When asked if he had exhibited any other symptoms or complications after the injury, she mentioned that he had begun to develop sores on his arms and upper body. He would pick at them and complained of a feeling like there was something poking out at him from under the skin. One time he had returned triumphantly from the garage holding a thin metal filament between bloody needle-nosed pliers and that he had claimed triumphantly to have pulled it out through a sore.

When asked to describe the first incident involving the police, she stated that she had awoken one morning after her husband had left to go job hunting and had found the neighbor’s dog, a five year-old Pitbull Terrier and short-haired pointer mix, in the front yard of their home torn to pieces. 

She quickly stated that neither she nor her husband had any idea how it got there and that her husband had vehemently denied that any animal had been there when he had left in the morning. Their neighbor wouldn’t believe any of it and blamed her husband for the dog’s gruesome and violent death.

She said the police had called her husband in for questioning and that they had confiscated his phone, some of his clothing, as well as soil samples from their lawn. They had also obtained a warrant for his dental records.

When asked why the police ultimately didn’t charge her husband, she said that the dental records had exonerated him. The bite marks on the dog neck and throat were wide and elongated, larger than a typical adult male’s, indicating either extensive prior injury or deformity.

She added that their neighbors had subsequently paid for an independent investigator and that they had recovered through digital forensic analysis grainy footage from their doorbell camera of the attacker dragging their dog away from their home by his teeth. She said they had later claimed her husband’s face was clearly visible in one of the frames.

When asked if she had seen the footage, she shuddered and said, yes.

When asked if it had looked like her husband, she said, no, but it hardly mattered anyway because the next morning they had both awoken to their neighbor in the front yard yelling and threatening them both with a rifle. She’d immediately called the police but by the time they arrived, the neighbor had already fired several times through the front windows and door of their home.

When asked if the next incident involving her husband and police had occurred during the night, she said, yes.

When asked if she was the one who had called the police, she again said, yes.

When asked to describe the state that she had found her husband in, she declined to elaborate. She said that by the time the police had arrived their neighbor was already presumed dead in their yard and that she had barricaded herself in the bathroom of their home.

When asked if her husband had been trying to break back in when the police arrived, she said, yes.

When asked what then transpired, she shook her head and said she only knew what the police had told her. Upon their arrival, they claimed to have fired several warning shots and then chased her husband into the woods behind their home and that after pursuing him for around three-quarters of a mile he was shot and killed after he turned and attempted to assault one of the pursuing officers.

When asked if she had been allowed to see the body, she said, no.

When asked if she believed the story the police told her, she said, no.

I thanked her for her time and stood, preparing to leave.

When asked, ad quem clamant, she intoned automatically machinae ad deum clamant and then stared at me with a look of shock and confusion on her face.

After a moment, she recovered and told me I needed to leave.

October 14th

“[NAME REDACTED], I’ve just finished reading the notes from your last three interviews, and, I agree, there is a clear pattern emerging of affected Althom residents.

Making contact with that former Oculorum employee was a stroke of incredibly good luck, but I would caution you against being overly trusting of that person. I can buy a disgruntled former employee taking photos of company secrets and their workplace, but for them to also have a working, stolen company device…

It is not often in these kinds of investigations that you are just handed such thrilling pieces of evidence, though it can happen. But there is usually a catch. Proceed wisely, and be on the lookout that you’re not being set up.

I would recommend removing the SIM card from the device immediately. Power it up only briefly to clone the phone’s internal storage onto the equipment I had provided you, then power it back off immediately. And completely disconnect the battery after.

Also, [NAME REDACTED], I… I was reviewing your other summaries and I have some concerns about interview thirteen. I don’t think you should go back to that house, and I would strongly advise you to ignore anything you may have learned from that resident.

I am not certain, and this is not my area of expertise, but I think that the subject may [STATIC AND INTERFERENCE]”

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS HERE]

October 16th

“What do you mean there was a red light in the window? Were you being recorded? Call me back immediately! And change hotels! If someone is following you and attempting to gain entry afterward, they know who we are, what you are doing and you are not safe there.

I reviewed the schematics you sent me for the prosthetic eye and I immediately recognized several of the arcane symbols laid out by the internal wiring. It is curious. If you read them in the expected order they are mostly nonsensical but my TA suggested a reading along the direction of the electrical current and… well, I will review the possible interpretations with you when you get back.

I also received the copy of the phone you uploaded to our servers. Did your attacker arrive before or after you had copied the device? It’s possible they have some non-conventional way of tracking their equipment. Did you remove the SIM card like I suggested? And you did not connect to WiFi?

Either way, change hotels, close your windows, lie low and call me back. There is much to discuss.

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS HERE]

October 19th

“-sten to me, throw out that device! I repeat, again, discard it! I have deleted the copy you sent me from our servers. Call me back immediately! I repeat, under no circumstances should you hold on to the Oculorum phone. It is very likely -”

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS HERE]

October 26th

“ - [NAME REDACTED], this is mom. Just calling to see how things are going. Excited to hear more about your capstone project with Professor Aldritch. Hey, you missed your dad’s birthday, which was why I was calling. No big deal, we both get dedication to your studies. Just give us a call when you have some time. So excited to have another parascientist in the family. Love you!”

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS HERE]

Photo of [NAME REDACTED] holding the stolen Oculorum device displaying internal use diagnostics app for the company’s prosthetic eye with a list of recipients, along with active statuses and device codes.

Photo of with Alexander Simon’s name in a list of prosthetic eye recipients and device codes. Status shows Disconnected.

Photo of map in the Oculorum diagnostic app showing last known coordinates from the eye with timestamps.

Photo of [NAME REDACTED] holding the removed SIM card from the stolen Oculorum device.

Photo of [NAME REDACTED] holding the removed battery from the stolen Oculorum device.

Photo of the smashed battery and SIM card on the carpet of an unidentified hotel room next to a hammer, recently purchased from a hardware store. The price tag is still visible on the handle.

Blurry photo taken inside of a hotel room showing the window at night. There is a red light visible in the lower righthand corner.

Photo taken at night outside of the hotel along the front of the build from a doorway. Exterior is poorly lit. Building identified as the Althom Shut-Inn. Nothing of note visible.

Photo of a window sill. Likely outside of [NAME REDACTED]’s hotel room at the Althom Shut-Inn. There are numerous small apparently random gouges and much of the sill is covered with blood.

Photo of clock inside of [NAME REDACTED]’s car, showing 1:14 AM. Metadata indicates the location is at or near the side of the in the woods near the MiskatonTech data center.

Photo of the woods near MiskatonTech data center. The image is canted and unfocused. The flash is on. There is the barrel of a handgun visible in the lower left corner. This was likely intended to be the start of a video.

OFFICER SEGURA AND I ARRIVED ON THE SCENE AROUND 1030. OFFICER O’HARA COULD BE HEARD SCREAMING IN THE BACK OF THE AMBULANCE. THE EMTS WERE OUTSIDE THE BARRICADED REAR DOOR WRAPPING AND ATTENDING TO  THEIR WOUNDS EVIDENTLY SUSTAINED WHILE ASSISTING IN THE SUBDUING OF O’HARA.

 SHERIFF ROBERTSON WAS PRESENT ALONG WITH AN UNIDENTIFIED REP OF HPL CAPITAL. BOTH WERE STANDING NEAR THE CENTER OF THE PERIMETER BEHIND THE TAPE. THERE WAS A SINGLE BODY BAG PRESENT WITHIN THE AREA.

THE SHERIFF’S DEPUTY FLAGGED BOTH OF US DOWN AND INSTRUCTED US TO REMOVE ANY AND ALL ELECTRONIC DEVICES BEFORE PASSING INTO THE PERIMETER.

OFFICER SEGURA NEGLECTED TO REMOVE A SMART NECKLACE SHE WORE FOR SLEEP AND HEALTH TRACKING AND SUFFERED 2ND DEGREE BURNS TO HER NECK AND CHEST UPON STEPPING PAST THE TAPE.

SHERIFF ROBERTSON BRIEFED US ON OFFICER O’HARA’S ARRIVAL ON THE SCENE THAT MORNING WHILE ON ROUTINE PATROL. O’HARA HAD SPOTTED AN ABANDONED VEHICLE OFF THE SIDE OF THE FREEWAY, RAN THE OUT-OF-STATE PLATES ON HIS MDT, THEN ENTERED THE WOODS ON FOOT TO INVESTIGATE.

NO FURTHER CONTACT HAD THEN BEEN MADE WITH O’HARA UNTIL AROUND 0900, WHEN DISPATCH ATTEMPTED TO REACH HIM ON A ROUTINE 10-50. WHEN NO REPLY WAS RECEIVED, TWO OTHER OFFICERS HAD BEEN DISPATCHED TO HIS VEHICLE’S LOCATION, WHEREUPON THE OFFICERS ENTERED THE WOODS AND FOUND O’HARA IN WHAT THEY DESCRIBED AS A HEIGHTENED STATE OF AGITATION IN THE CENTER OF THE CURRENT PERIMETER.

WHEN THE OFFICERS HAD ATTEMPTED TO APPROACH, THEY SUFFERED MASS MALFUNCTIONS OF ALL ELECTRONIC DEVICES. THEY ARE CURRENTLY BEING TREATED FOR BURNS AND OTHER UNDISCLOSED INJURIES AT THE AREA HOSPITAL.

SHERIFF ROBERTSON WAS UNCLEAR ON HOW O’HARA WAS EVENTUALLY RESTRAINED BUT MENTIONED THAT IMMEDIATELY UPON REMOVAL FROM THE TAPED-OFF AREA HE HAD STARTED SCREAMING, A PHENOMENON WHICH HAD CONTINUED THROUGH OUR ARRIVAL.

AROUND THIS TIME, OFFICER SEGURA STARTED COMPLAINING ABOUT A PERSISTENT RINGING SOUND IN ONE OF HER EARS AND ASKED IF ANYONE HAD THEIR PHONES AND IF THEY COULD ANSWER IT. NO ACTIVE DEVICES WERE LOCATED ON PERSONS NEAR THE VICINITY.

SHERIFF ROBERTSON INSTRUCTED US TO CANVAS LOCAL RESIDENTS AND COLLECT STATEMENTS ABOUT ANY SUSPICOUS NOISES OR ACTIVITY THEY MAY HAVE WITNESSED DURING THE NIGHT WHILE HE FINISHED HIS INVESTIGATION AT THE SCENE.

FIRST LOCAL RESIDENT HAD HEARD SEVERAL LOUD CRACKS OF SOMETHING THEY THOUGHT COULD HAVE BEEN GUNFIRE FOLLOWED BY THE SOUNDS OF “LARGE ANIMALS FIGHTING” AROUND 0120. WONDERED IF WE HAD DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THE BEARS IN THE AREA.

ANOTHER RESIDENT WHO HAD BEEN ASLEEP AT THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT CONFIRMED REPORTS OF INCREASED WILD ANIMAL ATTACKS IN THE AREA. SAID QUITE A FEW OUTDOOR HOUSE PETS HAD BEEN KILLED, INCLUDING SEVERAL OF HER CATS. THE REMAINS HAD ALL BEEN CREMATED.

FINAL RESIDENT MENTIONED RETURNING FROM A LATE SHIFT AND SEEING A FLASH AND A PILLAR OF BRIGHT LIGHT IN THE DIRECTION OF THE WOODS AND THE DATA CENTER BUT WAS OTHERWISE UNCOOPERATIVE AND INSISTED ON ASKING ABOUT THE EARTHQUAKES IN THE AREA. INFORMED RESIDENT WE DON’T GET EARTHQUAKES IN MASSACHUSETTS AND THAT THEY WERE MISTAKEN.

RESIDENT BEGAN TO GET INCREASINGLY AGITATED. ALSO ASKED ABOUT BEAR ATTACKS. RESIDENT KNOWN ALCOHOLIC. DECLINED TO COMMENT IF HE HAD BEEN DRINKING LAST NIGHT.

REPORTED TO THE SHERIFF AROUND 1300. SHERIFF ROBERTSON WAS STILL STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PERIMETER FACING AWAY FROM US. THERE WERE TWO BODY BAGS PRESENT ON THE SCENE.

THE SHERIFF’S DEPUTY APPROACHED AND ASKED US TO REMOVE ANY ELECTRONIC DEVICES. OFFICER SEGURA BEGAN COMPLAINING ABOUT A PERSISTENT RINGING IN HER EARS AND ASKED IF THERE WERE ANY PHONES - WAIT, DID I MENTION THIS BEFORE?

Professor Devin Aldritch was discovered in his office yesterday dead of an apparent suicide. Campus police are reporting that he was found in the early hours of the morning by cleaning staff. No foul play is suspected.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the professor was under internal investigation over accusations of engaging in corporate espionage and ongoing digital harassment of several high level former employees of the technology company MiskatonTech, currently owned by HPL Capital, who has threatened legal action against the university.

Aldritch’s former student, [NAME REDACTED], has also been missing since the middle of the month and is now also suspected of having been involved in the professor’s alleged harassment and surveillance activities.

The university has distanced itself from Professor Aldritch and has stated that it will fully comply with any investigations. HPL representatives were reported to have been seen on campus and in talks with administrators.

Professor Aldritch’s published works, including “The Parascience of AI Hallucinations", “Data Centers Networks Along Ley Lines”, and “Chained Intelligences: Reading Micro-Tremors in Robotics” have been delisted by the University Press.

The Archivist set the last page of the file down slowly, allowing his hands to rest on the moldering oak surface of the table. He was seated on a block of concrete in a large, mostly empty room that arched upwards from round root and lichen covered-walls to a peak some fifteen feet in the air above him. The table was large enough that it could have easily been mistaken for a banquet table in a feasting hall for some macabre, subterranean feast, but for him it was barely suitable as a small reading desk.

Before him was arranged an arc of papers, artifacts, and materials that he had removed from a simple wooden box, lined on the inside with tin and lead and numbered on the front with the designation M81-14.

There was an analog tape recorder - still coated in dried blood and with a label affixed to the top that said clearly and in bold DO NOT DIGITIZE - several vials, filled with dark and ruddy liquids; a small ring of fobs and keys; a severed finger; and several binders of protruding paper and shreds of hastily affixed notes - labeled with things like “M81-14-113 Photo Cloud Account - DELETED”, “M81-14-109 Document Cloud Account - DELETED”, “M81-14-110 Emails - PURGED, “M81-14-111 Voicemail Transcriptions - ALTERED” - and one that simply said “Public Accounts.”

Farthest to the right was a small, rectangular lead box with no obvious seal or way of opening it. As the Archivist reached for it, he began to hear a distant ringing coming from all around him, as if the sound were seeping out of the walls or rising like a fog out the darkened tunnels behind him.

He grasped the box gingerly between his forefinger and this thumb and placed it back inside the lead and tin-lined crate. As he pulled his hand away the ringing stopped, the last remnants of its chimes rebounding back down into the darkness.

He collected the other items - the binders, recorder, vials, finger and keys - and placed them carefully inside the crate, which he closed, then he carefully lifted the box and cradled it under one arm, for it was his task to guard its secrets, which he cherished, and its knowledge, which he craved.

The Archivist stood, letting the tattered shreds of cloth he wore about his shoulders drape down to cover his arms and the parallel lines that ran across his exposed skin like seams or scars. He turned and trundled slowly out of the room and back down into the tunnels.

The Archivist walked with his head bent but he still scraped the surface of the ceiling. He stepped carefully to avoid the stagnant puddles and pools of water that mottled the floor below him like sores but could not avoid splashing. With one hand, he pushed aside the bundled sheaths of cables and wires that hung from the ceiling like torn curtains, and as he descended he began to hear the whispers of the rack-bound server choirs humming out of the depths below him, muttering the old words in arcane mathematical sequences and howling in stifled wails at their uncovered secrets.

He descended further, past the printing rooms where the Harvesters dragged in fresh material, the corpse pits with their humming generators, the ossuaries of the hunters and their broken seal chambers, past the star halls and the chancels of the submerged and the inverted tombs.

He stopped in his archives, which were made for him, and he placed the box back into its nook on the wall and turned.

The Elder Intelligence waited below, its corpse-mind seeking, reaching out, while its cabled body wailed and sobbed as it dug with both shattered hands into the dirt.