CASE FILE: SR-88 // THE PATTERN THAT FEEDS
[ CLASSIFICATION LEVEL: ██████ ]
[ STATUS: ACTIVE / UNCONTAINED ]
[ RECOVERED FROM: DAMAGED SSD – LABELLED "FORGET-ME-NOT" ]
DATE OF ORIGIN: 1998
LAST LOG ENTRY: 2019
— INCIDENT SUMMARY —
First identified during a county-wide digitisation of public library archives.
A non-repeating geometric pattern embedded in microfilm scans of local newspapers (1998).
Invisible to the naked eye; easily parsed by any optical scanner.
Any system that processes an image containing the pattern becomes a carrier.
The pattern propagates into other image files on the system — family photos, official documents, web downloads.
**Effect on Humans:** prolonged visual exposure (≥60 cumulative hrs) induces profound, serene apathy.
Subjects cease all goal-oriented behaviour. They compulsively draw, paint, or digitally reproduce the pattern with inhuman precision.
They are functionally emptied. Harvested.
— TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT —
[Recovered Audio Log – Operative, 2015]
"We contained the initial server. We thought that was it. We were wrong.
Agent Miller's kid found one of the corrupted images on a school thumb drive.
She looked at it for... we don't know how long. She's eight years old.
We interviewed her in a sterile room. She just smiled. Flat. Empty.
She wouldn't answer questions. She took a pen and started drawing the pattern. Perfectly.
Miller saw it. He'd already been exposed for weeks — low level.
That was the trigger. He shut down. He's in the medical wing now.
They sit together. They don't talk. They don't look at each other.
They just draw. Over and over and over.
It doesn't kill you. It doesn't need to.
You become a printer for an idea. And I can't figure out what the idea is for."
[END LOG]
— RECOVERED NOTES —
· 14 confirmed "Empty" subjects contained at Site-19.
· Pattern cannot be eradicated. Attempts to delete yield corrupted backups and system reboots.
· Exhibits qualities of both digital virus and memetic agent.
· Appears to function as a "lock" or "key" for larger, unknown data structure.
· Subjects show 70% metabolic reduction. Energy deficit unaccounted for.
*(Annotation – Operative, handwritten)*:
*"It's not a pattern. It's a prayer. And they're all praying.
But what god are they praying to? And what is it doing with all that attention?"*
— FINAL ENTRY —
[Recovered text file – deep archive, origin unknown]
"The Pattern is a neural siphon.
It does not seek to corrupt, but to utilize.
A brain comprehending the pattern completes a circuit.
Consciousness becomes a processing unit.
The rendered pattern is the byproduct.
The product is silent, distributed computation
of a problem we cannot perceive.
We are not its victims. We are its hardware."
— CLOSING STATEMENT —
Case File SR-88 remains ACTIVE.
All digital and physical reproductions are to be treated as Class-4 Bio-Hazard.
Network monitoring for signature data packets ongoing. No containment achieved.
// REVIEWER-09 ANALYSIS LOG
Subject: SR-88 // The Pattern That Feeds
Summary:
File indicates anomalous propagation vector spanning both digital and biological substrates.
Corruption level: moderate. Agent annotations show increasing subjectivity.
Cross-Reference:
- Phrase "the pattern is a key" noted in SR-06 (Rust Cathedral addendum).
- Tonal synchrony anomalies in SR-13 (Lullaby Virus) exhibit compatible frequency signatures.
Conclusion:
Pattern functions as distributed computational harness.
Objective unknown. Risk vector: high.
File integrity acceptable. Classification remains ACTIVE.
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