PRA  IS

Project Name: OBELISK

Start Date: 3/22/09

Completion Date: --

Overview: Project Wolf, Understand nature of Kazimir Volken's life-force manipulation ability.

Overview [6/8/10 Rev]: Comparative analysis of Volken and Beauchamp's life-force manipulation abilities.

Overview [10/12/10 Rev]: Historic understanding of black and white "conduits"

Overview [4/18/10 Rev]: Capability review of subject #0008

Overview [9/27/10]: Renamed to Project Obelisk

Note [3/22/09]: After review of files delivered from the Company I have been assigned to ascertain the full capabilities of Kazimir Volken's "life-force manipulation" ability. Primary purpose is to ascertain the possibility of his survival after the Verrazano-Narrows incident.

Note [3/31/09]: Documentation from Project Icarus has arrived. Focusing on Fort Daedalus research. Fascinating reference in Volken's own notes to his "diametric counterpart." Someone like Beauchamp from that era? Volken's notes indicate he may have experienced sometimes vivid hallucinations, but it's impossible to tell whether that was from an undiagnosed mental illness or resultant from his ability.

Note [4/12/09]: Received remains of victims of Volken's ability from CDC. Analysis indicates rapid soft tissue desiccation. Bones have been effectively petrified? All calcium removed from their composition, remaining hard matter appears to be a brittle carbon composite. Theorizing that the "life-force" transfer is a molecular rearrangement of matter, siphoning organic elements from living hosts to Volken, resulting in cell-death. Makes sense, as "life-force" is hippy nonsense. Ability must have some means to use consumed matter to rebuild damaged tissue using epigenetic memory of body structure? Still trying to explain report of shadowy "tendrils" and darkness around Volken and his possession ability.

Note [7/18/09]: Tested the other remains. Across all 12 samples, chemical composition of remains is 88% carbon, and the remaining 22% are is local matter composite. Each varies depending on the location of the killing act. Trace elements of materials representative of interior structures. It's like Pompeii. Those remains aren't bones, the bones were destroyed, but vacuums within volcanic rock filled with poured minerals. These chalky, ashen remains are like echoes of people's physical remains. Utterly unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Note [11/9/09]: Update to note I have been pulled away from this project for months. Likely will remain so barring new information.

Note [12/3/09]: Received report indicating that Abigail Beauchamp's healing ability may in fact be a "life-force manipulation" ability related to that of Kazimir Volken. With the survival of Volken's ability confirmed, this has re-opened the project. However, I have neither access to Beauchamp nor the current possessor of Volken's ability. Requested retrieval of all files on Abigail Beauchamp.

Note [12/5/09]: Beauchamp's file entirely unhelpful, nothing to indicate anything other than an ordinary early-life manifestation.

Note [12/12/09]: After speaking with several of my peers we have collated information from the Ferrymen network and their adjacent allies. Their own independent research has pinned the term "conduit" to these two abilities, though I cannot discern proper attribution of the word. Volken's research journals from Daedalus reference the term "conduit" in his discussion of a hallucination about a woman he did not know. Discreetly involving Doctor Ko to enhance data collection.

Note [12/19/09]: Following assessment of information pertaining to Operation:Apollo and surveillance information of Francois Allegre and Flint Deckard, can now confirm that Beauchamp's ability is a "conduit" as Volken's. Redefining abilities as "black conduit" to reference Volken's ability, re: appearance of black, smoky form when not possessed. "White conduit" for Beauchamp's ability due to discharge of colorless light on use of healing.

Note [4/18/10]: A new bio sample was delivered yesterday through a Retriever chain of custody. Female child, age indeterminate, SLC-Expressive. Found at site of Ojas Amargos, Mexico raid. According to the doctors who briefly held her in the San Francisco facility, she possesses life-force manipulation abilities. Will begin review of similarities.

Note [4/22/10]: After a full interview and psych eval we have determined that this young woman currently Sample 0008 is in possession of both black and white conduits, in spite of their anathemic natures. Specificity of ability appears to have shifted some based on initial conversations. Sample 0007 has offered to interview freely. Once I secure permission from Mr. Broome that's a priority.

Note [4/24/10]: Spoke with 0007 today, she is a mosaic that prefers the name Joy. Through the interview she explained that the black and white conduits were both "acquired" when she passed into the proximity of what she believed to be their destruction, though she claims to have no further knowledge as to how this process occurred. When our Retriever team moved on the claim, 0008 was critically injured resulting in the transferal of both conduits to her. Joy indicated the conduits (she called them scions?) are abilities that have been passed down over two thousand years. Need to ascertain validity of that. Doctor Allen might have a coronary if she hears this!

Note [5/11/10]: Blood and DNA tests came back, 0008 identity confirmed. Given her mother's political influence, we're going to continue to refer to her in our files by serial number, hopefully to maintain some level of plausible deniability should this get out. What we cannot ascertain is if 0008 was Evolved prior to coming into possession of the conduits and if her original ability either did not manifest or is being suppressed. We begin extensive tests on her capabilities today.

Notes [5/12/10]: After a violent outburst during chemical negation Broome ordered 0007 into ACTS stasis indefinitely. 

Notes [5/14/10]: After just a few days of testing we've determined that 0008's use of her ability is a direct give and take. She can pull "life force" from one subject and channel it into another, accelerating healing and manipulating biological structures intuitively (which could cure ailments not otherwise healed by prolonged rest, such as cancer or various blood disorders). The healthy matter has to come from somewhere and based on her performance, without a source, she draws entirely from herself.

Notes [5/28/10]: Weekly endurance tests for 0008 are going apace. We have good numbers now on weight-to-death.

Notes [6/3/10]: Stopped by 0007's ACTS this morning to run biometrics. Could've sworn her eyes were open for a second. Need to ask Ford if the chem doses are the right level.

Notes [6/11/10]: Received a package of information from the Eclipse team that they believe pertains to my research on the conduits. Historic references of similar abilities. They're shipping me photographs and translation documentation from an archaeological dig in Nasiriyah, Iraq.

Notes [6/18/10]: Got word from night staff that 0008 had a night terror. Killed two security who tried to enter her room. Moved to chemically negate for the time being while we wait on older lab results.

Notes [7/12/10]: Shipped some information off to Staten Island Hospital, hoping Dr. Gregor and Dr. Cong will be able to shed some insight on the elevated white blood cell levels we're seeing.

Notes [8/1/10]: No word from Cong or Gregor. No one at central offices seems to know what's going on?

Notes [8/13/10]: Well, shit.

Notes [8/14/10]: Everything is on hold with SIH's destruction. Security is tighter than ever. Nothing to do but sit and wait.

Notes [8/21/10]: Security hold is lifted. Dunlap informed me that my shipment came. Lots of digital images of an excavated obelisk, pictograpms, some kind of weird writing. Swear to god I've seen this stuff somewhere before. I'm going to be using the Corinthian Antiquities shell we acquired from Linderman's assets to arrange a meeting with Dr. Ko to see what his take on this is.

Notes [9/15/10]: They've moved 0008 to indefinite ACTS suspension. Can't say I didn't see that coming.

Notes [9/27/10]: Had my meeting with Dr. Ko, he brought along a linguist trained in reading Sumerian cuneiform. According to Ko, the obelisk is from around the 26th century BC. The obelisk's four sides reference a series of gifts bestowed on a king named Mesannepada by an unnamed lord or... something? There's dry lists of cattle, dry provisions, slaves, soldiers, all the stuff I suppose you'd expect? But Mesannepada was given three slaves that the obelisk claims are special? He says the Sumerian words are "dumutuda sag asme." Dumutuda meaning child of importance" and "asme" being a word that means "sun" or "special power of the sun." In literal translation it's "Children of the Sun" or something to that effect.

     Of the three slave children bestowed to Mesannepada, Ko says the obelisk describes them being able to turn crops and livestock to ash, another able to bring a soldier back from the dead, and the third who "governs" the others. They're represented on the obelisk by a moon, a sun, and a star. Each panel details the purported abilities of each slave-child. The sun panel details an ability identical to what I understand as the black conduit, though with some variations that I can't be certain aren't illustrative. The moon panel likewise describes what I believe to be the "white conduit" though it describes it as being able to "create so much an abundance of flesh that death is unavoidable" and I'm curious to see if the "white" aspect of the conduits has more lethal applications. The star panel seems to describe a third life-force manipulator that could influence the powers of the others, minimizing or amplifying them. It also seemed to have some restorative capabilities? This means there's a third conduit out there somewhere. Or was? If any of this isn't just coincidence.

     Doctor Ko wasn't able to give me any further information without physical access to the obelisk, which according to my sources is still somewhere in Iraq. The team that excavated the obelisk was forced to flee the country earlier in the year when fighting with Mazdak intensified. Regardless, Doctor Ko was very helpful.

Notes [10/11/10]: Woke 0008 up and kept her on a negation drug routine. Hoping to resume tests next week.

Notes [10/18/10]: Starting tests on lethality of white conduit. Current speculation may be creation of cancerous tissue? Not sure what we'll get.

Notes [10/23/10]: I can't get 0008 to cooperate. Debating signing her up for time with Doctor Sheridan, but I honestly don't know how helpful therapy will be at this point.

Notes [11/9/10]: Director slashed funding for research, we may not pick up again until the spring.

Notes [2/7/11]: They're shuttering Project Obelisk. DoEA is pressuring to develop new anti-evolved countermeasures. I'm being moved to bioweapons research. They're mothballing 0008 until after the "cure" is complete. 

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