Project 773 – Exploration 8 –
Walter refused consent to place the boy into the tank again so soon after the third exploration of Project 269 had failed. We have decided therefore to return attentions back to Project 773 for the time being.
The magnetic neurostimulator is the first essential component. The second is the laboratorY itself, whose dimensions will encourage reception of transmissions. But despite mY joY, there is still discontent. Something here is not preciselY right. Something missing, or something extra. I cannot place it. I am crowded bY the walls.
Perhaps the failed element isn't the test subject himself. He may be perfectly able to communicate with a fresh corpse as was first theorised. Adjusting the means of communication, or, rather, 'going back on ourselves' as it were may be in order.
Such a simple tweaking of the experiment beforehand (Exploration 7) begs the question: Why did we revert to using the tank at all?
Often the easiest solution alludes two geniuses when pent up inside of our small lab because they have become too obsessed with thinking outside of the box and imagining impossibilities, too busy arguing and competing with the other that their inner voice of reason becomes... deafened. I think besides the frequent coffee and food run, I can offer them occasional clarity too.
It is clearly too early to start hooking up the test subject – a little boy – to a dead thing again and expect him to engage in conversation with it, even if the conversation isn't a typical exchange of words or thoughts. We are hoping that at the very least he will experience visual or even emotional connections to the carcass, but as Walter reminds us, so much has already happened here and so much is still about to. If experiments are rushed, we may have destroyed adequate results.
We cannot risk that. We also cannot propel the boy into scientific advanced procedures any more so than he can stall scientific development. We are just three people. Four, I suppose.
The problem with Project 269 is that we have become too excitable and were almost prepared to sacrifice the test subject for our cause. If Walter hadn't remembered that the child in which we are manipulating is, in fact, his own and, in turn, hadn't reminded us that he is just that, a child, then I have no doubt that we would have lost the boy to Project 269.
Returning to 773 is in the best interests of the boy...
And since the animal carcass couldn't transmit anything to Peter (because we are certain such failed attempts at picking something up didn't reflect the test subject's ability), we need a human-to-human conversation.
And since we don't have a human corpse readily available for experimentation, we will have to learn from Walter's drug-induced coma and the mistakes of our 269.3 work.
And since we couldn't push further with the test subject because his natural life was hanging in the balance and we would have a father to answer to thereafter, if we can ensure that Peter himself will not act as the incorrectly christened 'temporary corpse' then there should be no problems exacting a second device much like the neuro-stimulator and using a second human-based test subject to counteract our boy.
* And so, if we merge Project 773 with 591, re-evaluating the military strategy and its ghost network we half-successfully established, then young Peter can hopefully adjust to one of our previous test subjects and communicate with him over the secret frequency.
NB/ See Project 591 Exploration 1-21 lab notes – Roy McComb.
** McComb was injected with an organo-iridium compound that acted as a receiver (albeit an unfortunately poor receiver). Not unlike Cortexiphan, the subtle messages that McComb receives enter via his sensory cortex. There was no immediate use for McComb himself because no one actually activated the unique frequency he and just two other test subjects were exposed to.
However, if the boy continued with Walter's games and learnt to better harness how he received information himself, he could easily pull thoughts/feelings/visions from McComb through osmosis almost. The neuro-stimulator to the child is mere training wheels to a bike.
If the iridium-based compound were shifted to McComb's auditory cortex, the transmission might be easier for both test subjects to understand. But making things easier on the boy isn't our intent – this ghost network is to act as the barrier between the living and dead, merely in theory. If Peter can successfully access McComb's mental blockage, there is no reason he cannot extract information from the deadened mindset of a corpse.
*** To simplify the intent of Cortexiphan: a drug designed to heighten the minds and abilities of children, and, most certainly, mirrored on the higher brain function of our little one-ninety. If we ever reintroduced him to it, I don't know if it would overwhelm or stimulate him.