It sits at the back of your brain, the idea of getting older. Beyond the aches and pains that accumulate as the years go by is the distinct realization, that somewhere around your forties the people you knew start shuffling off this mortal coil. The illusion of the immortality of youth is properly shattered early on but somewhere in the middle the specter of death becomes a distant memory. So, it came as a bit of a shock to me when Frank Simmons, an old military buddy of mine passed away in the summer of my late thirties. The diagnosis was suicide.
Frank was senior enlisted and a good decade older than me but he was always the cheerful sort, Chief Sunnyside as he was called with equal measure of humor and derision. I know what you’re thinking. It’s always the one’s that shine brightest that hold the greatest darkness. Screw that, usually in the aftermath there is a slew of small anecdotal stories of the darkness that was lurking behind the curtain of positivity. They always gave small telltale signs of the troubles in their heart. Not Frank though, and I wasn’t the only one surprised by his death, besides his wife and kids were a slew of friends and coworkers both military and otherwise who didn’t have one story about how Frank confided in them about a hidden depression he was fighting.
Three days after I got back from the funeral as I was neck deep in my own struggles with life, a package arrived for me. It was one of those rare kinds that they actually needed a signature for, instead of leaving it on your doorstep for thieves. Whoever sent it was keenly aware that I worked from home and my whimsical habits, enough to know when to have the package arrive. Before I read the label, I ran down the short list of possible candidates that knew me that well. So I wasn’t that surprised when I read Frank’s name as the sender. The package had been sent the day before his death.
Inside my two-bedroom home, bachelor pad, as my associates would call it, I opened the package. Celine, my domestic short-hair Queen, showed vague interest in the new addition to her kingdom as cats are wanton to do. I scratched her chin and promised her the box once it was empty. Satisfied that her servant knew his place, she dropped to the floor and sashayed away with her tail in the air.
With the packaging tape severed and the lid folded back the contents were revealed. Two tightly packed stacks of notebooks and printed files. Frank came from a time before the digital age, a now almost extinct species of analog humans that took notes by hand. It wasn’t that he rejected technology, he just saw too many exploits in it. A digital file was open to everyone he warned us.
Every scrap of paper he sent me was stamped with a barcode. Immediately I knew what kind of mess Frank had sent me, I didn’t know what it pertained to, but after a quick scan through my own devices I knew it was something I shouldn’t have in my possession.
Civilians only have a dim idea of how documents are classified in the government and military, they have a vague concept thanks to Hollywood but most don’t know or understand that even classifications such as ‘Top Secret’ and ‘Need to Know’ have subcategories. Frank retired from the military and joined a major defense company; I won’t say which because I value my life. Point is the classification on these documents was the highest I had ever seen outside a room buried beneath a storage bunker, in short, no one should know.
I dropped the stacks of files on my desk and the box on the floor. Celine claimed her new throne immediately and curled up into a satisfied ball. I logged everything at that point and sent the related files to my police contact. I was not going to a federal prison, not even for Frank. What was Frank working on and why did he send it to me?
The latter was easy, I was the only one he knew with the skills necessary and the only one he knew that could handle whatever it was that I’d learn, it wasn’t a matter of trust, it was a logical process of steps. As for what it was, the answer was on a single black ringed file, the only one with a proper label. Through the sheer plastic cover the subject glared at me; The Strain.
There exists within the vast internet and its history, a wide variety of tall tales, ghost stories, rumors and conspiracy theories and as long as that list is, the variations make it just as wide. One such ghost story is that within the dark net exists an audio file, that according to the rumors, shortly after you listen to it, you will die. It was a story almost as old as the internet and even during World War Two the idea of sounds that were weaponized and could kill have existed. It honestly goes back farther than that but the particular rumor pertaining to the internet dubbed it, The Strain.
The rabbit hole theories pertaining to The Strain were equally audacious. Everything from looted Nazi technology to rogue A.I. and even an electronic lifeform SCP-451. Of course, aliens were mixed in there somewhere as well. Why would Frank be involved in an internet rumor?
Maybe he got shuffled through the departments and relegated to a small bureau that investigates the ridiculous detritus that floats around the nets on the obscure off-chance there’s some truth to it. Like the small departments of larger bureaus that investigate every terrorist plot that floats to the surface. Personally, I can imagine being in such a place breaking my will to live. Not Frank, he was my superior, I watched him comb through data logs for hours, a job like that wouldn’t break him. Oh no...
There it was, on the first page past the coversheet, Project Siren. It wouldn’t be the first, it wouldn’t be the hundredth time someone heard a rumor and decided to try it out for kicks and giggles. Someone heard the rumors on the internet and decided to try and craft one on their own. It started out as an experiment at Harvard, of course. It evolved from there. I poured over each word written and typed that lay before me.
Government funds carefully woven into the fabric of bureaucracy to look like charitable donations and scientific research grants. Field experiments on various animals. The early stages produced moderate effects. It was only after several years that any success was to be had. Long term exposure to low frequency tones would produce the ill-effects desired.
It was nothing like the science fiction and horror books. There was no instance of one sound to kill them all. Ultimately, long term health defects, even suicide from mental strain in accordance with the effects of PTSD and torture. As far as internet myths go, this was a bust. ADHD is a curious condition. It is prone to certain behavioral patterns such as obsession. It was at this time that I noticed that I had made Frank’s little gift my entire world for a week. I took a break to feed Celine and make my second pot of coffee for the day. I started the first one before midnight so it's only two so far.
I had been scrutinizing Frank’s written notes for several hours that day, straining the sentences for any missing pieces. ADHD cool ability number two; pattern recognition. Pouring coffee into my cup of creamer I noticed the peculiarities in Frank’s writing. Frank belonged to the Royal Order of Grammar Nazis, so why was this word misspelled, why was there a comma there, why was this proper noun not capitalized? This was why Frank chose me, for my affliction.
It took another week to read between the lines and decipher the second set of notes hidden in the first. The messages were short and simple. The actual successes were data logged and sealed. No one outside of the in-group knew anything and officially, Project Siren was a failure. This included the limitations of the Sonic Weapon referred to as The Strain. The last message was cryptic. Never judge a book by its cover.
At the bottom of the stack Frank sent me had been a programmer’s joke book entitled “Data Morphology”. A joke book in the sense that it was one of those books that every programmer had but no one took seriously due to the fantastical nature of the ideas it proposed. I had overall ignored it until now.
A quick skim through the pages was everything I expected it to be. Wild speculation about data over the internet collecting in the cloud and conglomerating into something new. Nothing jumped out at my brain. My fingertips on the other hand discovered the truth. The slight difference in the thickness between the front cover and the back.
A small flathead screwdriver was all that was necessary to split the back cover and reveal the hidden protective envelope. Inside the clear green bag, a data chip rattled. Anxiety tightened my chest and adrenaline shot through my veins. Did Frank send me a copy of The Strain? I dropped the chip into the receptacle on my reader and booted it up. I isolated the drives from the rest of my system and brought up every data protection program that I had.
Celine jumped into my lap and all the trepidation that had been building up screeched out of my body with a single yelp. Whatever anger I held for her dissipated as she looked at me with her golden eyes and cried for attention. I rewarded her with heavy petting. Whatever happens, she would guide me safely to the afterlife I thought as she pressed her furred cheek against me and purred.
I clicked the icon on my screen to unzip the files on the chip. Nothing but document files. How boring, I thought. I opened up one and after the first couple of lines the anxiety returned. Each line detailed plans on how to effectively utilize sonic weapons against a country’s populace. Which country? An enemy’s, ours. The files didn’t specify. Which meant only one thing, every country was a target.
Due to the nature of the data involved it could be embedded in any audio file. Files that were exchanged worldwide through various social media companies. The Strain wasn’t just capable of killing people, it could alter human perception and brain chemistry. Each file I opened detailed a new plan of implementation on turning the human race into a herd of obedient sheep guided by their own altered instincts. Minds that can be changed between zealous soldiers to mindless drones, slaves.
It was at the end of each file, two lines that shook me to my core, a title and a detail. Known countermeasures: None. These two lines were repeated over and over again with each file as I manically opened and closed each document. The last file loomed at me. A string of numbers and letters like the rest but its contents spoke volumes. Recommendation for subjects unaffected or resistant to Project Siren: Extermination.