Log:
06/11/2019: Subject Delta-1 has been committed to his containment chamber, despite his protestations. I’m loathe to be the one assigned to his observation for fear of eventual professional consequences, but we all knew the risks when we signed up. Any suspicious happenings outside of the facility would cause temporary incarceration once inside, even for senior members of the managerial staff. And Director Lutz’s experiences were certainly “suspicious”, by any account. Even if they were almost certainly a drug-fueled misadventure. At least he didn’t end up in rehab and embarrass us all.
06/12/2019: Delta-1 continues to stick to his story. Allegedly he went for a walk on the trails near his house late on the 6th of June, and his memories stop there. When they return, he is in a ditch wearing the same clothes 3 days later in the early morning. As far as office gossip goes, Delta-1’s drugs of choice are not hallucinogenic, which actually makes this story seem a little more suspect than I originally thought. My current theory is a potential overdose that left him near-dead in a ditch and he got lucky that nothing with ill-intent found him lying there for a few days. He has reiterated multiple times that it must have been a “fugue state, you know, like Breaking Bad”, which I find unlikely.
06/13/2019: Spent the day analyzing Delta-1’s medical intake forms. Was supposed to only spend a few hours with this before moving back to other work, but they are fascinating. Not only are they free of overdose related markers, they are by far the healthiest biometric markers I’ve ever seen. Every single one is almost right in the middle of where it is supposed to be. It weakens any hypothesis based on a state of duress or overdose.
06/14/2019: In light of his intake forms, I’ve been reviewing Delta-1’s daily checkups. They tell a different story. After the initial intake, his markers all have worsened significantly over the last few days. His diet has also been spotty – he seems to be almost deliberately avoiding any food with non-trace amounts of salt added. This is not good, seeing as most of our rations are processed and frozen. I’ve made a request for fresh food to see if getting him to eat a little more helps turn this around.
06/15/2019: He’s eating more now that I’ve cut the salt, but it isn’t helping his vitals. He developed a fever today, and though all his markers are down, Medical can’t seem to figure out anything particularly wrong with him. I approved a few experimental treatments to attempt to narrow it down.
06/16/2019: Delta-1’s condition continues to worsen. Met with Dr. Jensen today for a second opinion – he has become a bit of a laughing stock after the incident with Rho-5, but I find he is good at assessing information from alternative perspectives. I also figured he may want to help Delta-1 as a way to gain back some goodwill after the relentless mocking he took from Delta-1 for the aforementioned Rho-5 incident. Jensen said my observations reminded him of some patterns from his research and that I should try exposing Delta-1 to cold iron, and observe his response.
I attempted this with a simple iron bar procured from facilities. Delta-1 was terrified, for some reason. He backed into the corner and started hissing at me like a cat. I was rather dumbfounded. This behaviour, combined with his continually deteriorating physical state made him look like a wounded animal. At this point, Medical is considering taking over the study to prevent whatever condition from working towards an eventual death.
06/17/2019: I’ve been usurped as study director for Delta-1 as Medical took charge, though I’m still technically the science lead so I have access to continue observations. Delta-1 looks like they have been hit by a train, repeatedly, at this point. Their body, which a week ago was in the state of a fit young person in their early twenties, now more closely resembles that of one in their late 60s near the end of a terminal disease.
I suspect he only has so much time left. The autopsy will likely be more revealing than the remaining days.
06/19/2019: The body is gone.
After Delta-1 passed, his body was collected and placed into cold storage for an eventual autopsy. When we pulled it out two days later, all we found in the body bag was a pile of sticks and rocks. Dr. Jensen declined to comment, and requested to no longer be associated with this incident.
I am writing this off as a bizarre type of drug overdose, but I have several unanswered questions. I plan however, on keeping those to myself. Office politics never really were my thing.
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