February 17th, 1944
"Status Report?"
Olaf Lunden stopped working on a prototype to stare at the man who had entered his old dusty workshop. The place was a poorly maintained area, scraps and hunks of metal littering the floors between each workstation. Each station had at least one man working at it, all of them assembling odd-looking trinkets, all the while The Andrew Sisters played over a phonograph in the middle of the room, the one part of the workshop not covered in grease and dust.
"Yes, Mr. Lunden, the O5 wants a status report. They specifically asked for one from the ‘Director of the War-Time Production Division'. That would be you, no?"
Olaf put down the half-built pistol he'd been working on and got up, brushing off his overalls. He was a brawny, middle-aged man, his arms covered in scars, each one tied to a technological breakthrough.
"We're close to getting those Aetheric guns Allen designed to the production phase. We just need to run a few more tests on them, make sure they won't explode on any soldier’s hand, or grant them godhood, none of that. We're also close to making a breakthrough with those self-defence sigils they ordered. It's looking like they're gonna be a whole lot stronger than any armour we got out there in the field right now, but there’s still some kinks in need of ironing."
The man looked down and shook his head, "That's all well and good, Mr. Lunden, but they need something big. Big, and quick."
"Something big? Don't the Allies have the Western Front under control? Heard they turned one of their ‘Wunderwaffes’ against them. Looks like we’re close to being done with all these Obskura kooks."
"You're not wrong on that, Mr. Lunden, but Obskura isn't the only threat we're dealing with now. The Japanese have begun to make some moves in the East that the Overseers are finding concerning. IJAMEA’s meddling could extend the fight in the Pacific by months, if not years. They want something big, something to make sure the IJAMEA won't become a threat."
Olaf grumbled, taking off his gloves to walk over the planning desk, decades and decades of designs without funding written all over the thousands of pages and memos lying around.
"I'll push for the production of Allen's guns and assign some more men to the sigils, but…” Olaf scratched his head. “Something big… Does the Council wants us to just build a giant eigenweapon- Some sorta death ray and just point it at the Japanese?"
"Something like that, Mr. Lu-"
"Doctor," Olaf interrupted. "Refer to me as Doctor Lunden. I didn't endure six years of crap to be called a Mister."
The man forced a smile before nodding. "My apologies, Dr. Lunden. But yes, that's along the lines of what the Council is asking."
Olaf sighed and began sifting through the papers on his desk, pulling out a worn notebook from the drawers. He flipped through it for a bit before eventually turning it around and giving it to the man.
"Allen, Reynolds and I had been working on a large war machine we could use. I got the idea for it from, ah… what happened at the Gulf, and I wondered if the Foundation could create a mechanical colossus of our own. Of course, we scrapped the project when the war efforts ran our funding dry, but there’s still two thirds of the damn thing collecting dust down there at Bjørnøya. If this IJAMEA thing really is as much of a threat as you're saying it is, I'm sure the Council would find it reasonable to fund the project again. Could take less than a year for that thing to start moving, you know?”
The man was studying the notes, barely paying attention to Olaf as he spoke. After a brief second, he ripped out a few pages from the notebook and neatly folded them. He stuffed them into his coat pocket and handed the book back to Olaf.
“You should have asked before outright ripping the-”
"I will share this with the Council, Mr. Lunden. Expect a telegram from them in the coming days. It was a pleasure meeting you, sir."
And as soon as he’d come, the man had left.
“Doctor.” Olaf sighed, before going back to his workstation.
April 23rd, 1944
SITE-6
REVIEWED MATERIAL REQUESTS STOP.
UNANIMOUS COUNCIL VOTE STOP.
REQUESTS ACCEPTED
O5-7
Olaf put the telegram back into his pocket and sat down in the once-bustling workshop, now deserted. Many of the other men had been moved to the frontlines, designing and deploying weapons closer to the battlefield. This only left Olaf and a select few others at Site-6 to work on the colossus.
They’d made good progress on the project: The body was mostly there, but adapting the paratechnology and the proper sigils had taken longer than anticipated. Every riveted joint had to mesh with the appropriate concealment wards, which then had to mesh well with every piece of wiring and the proper anti-wear seals and, well, turns out building weapons was hard work. Thankfully, most of the hard work was behind them. The problem yet to solve was… Well…
"So, who's gonna drive it?"
Jakov Allen and Noel Reynolds sat in chairs close to Olaf. Their clothes were covered in oil and grease from the workshop, their hands full of cuts and blisters, their eyes reddened and resting over enormous bags.
"What do you mean, 'drive it'," Noel asked, exasperated. "I believed we decided to make it remote-controlled, yeah? Just like the radio in Auberto's car."
“And where’s the fun in that?”
”Fun…?”
“Well, what if the signal we use to control it gets jammed or it goes out of range? What then? It'll just be a sitting duck for the Japanese to take and reverse engineer. I'm not sure about you, Noel, but I'd rather fight with a giant robot than against it."
"And you'd rather have people inside this disaster of a contraption and risk them dying? We're still not entirely sure on the effects of half of the anomalies we funnelled into this thing. We could be sending good-working honest men to their deaths by having them pilot this."
“We’ll be worrying about magnitudes more dead men if they get a hold of our Goliath.”
Noel pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He gestured to Olaf, who had only been half paying attention to their dispute. "Olaf, tell me, what do you think?"
Olaf snapped back from his daydreams about what next to put into the giant, before attempting to think of a solution, "Well… why does it have to be either or?"
"… Pardon?" Jakov asked.
"Think about it. The Foundation’s contained several mechanical anomalies that can function well enough on their own. No pilots or anything. What's to say we couldn't make one of those ourselves? Give the machine the ability to control itself, give it an objective, and let it go. Of course, we'd still have to survey it and make sure it doesn't go off track, but it answers both your quandaries.”
The trio sat still for a full minute before Jakov broke the silence with a laugh.
"That’s a good joke, bud.” Jakov’s face quickly turned serious. “But come on, pilots are the way to go here, right? We can react faster if we're actually in the fight and-"
"No, no. I'm being completely serious here, Jak. It'll be better than wasting time training men to pilot the thing and get their brains linked or plugged into the thing or whatever we need to smash all anomalies into the pilot’s brain… Nor do we worry about a signal turning weak or being jammed.”
"And how would we even go about making something like that?" Noel asked. “I doubt anyone from the Foundation’s been able to pull that out, and don’t take this as an insult, but we couldn’t possibly pull it out either.”
Olaf sighed and scratched his chin, trying to think of a comeback to Noel's question. Asking those Broken Godcultists was definitely out of the question… He couldn’t go to Marshall and the others, nor to the guys at Prometheus either, unless he cost the Foundation all their remaining funding, or some other resource. He needed something else… Something way more creative… Something-
"Maybe something biological?"
Noel raised an eyebrow. "You want to give life to this machine?"
"That's basically what we're doing anyway, with or without biological components. Even then, do we not already have some biological stuff patched up inside?"
"Well, yes, but those don't make up a large enough component of the machine to really work-"
"I agree with Olaf," Jakov interrupted. "After the war, learning how to make self-automated machines could be useful for the Foundation. And he's right on the training thing, faster to give this thing control over itself than to train people to drive it. We haven't even started working on anything to make it pilotable. We'd have to take it apart and build the entire body frame from scratch, and that’s at best. Same goes with a remote-controlled approach."
Noel sighed.
"Alright, sure, we give it life. Now, the big question is… How?”
Olaf smiled.
“I have an idea.”
October 23rd, 1944
Kiyoshi stood at guard, watching the southern coast of Mindanao. The island of Leyte had only recently been invaded by the Westerners, and the rest of the Japanese forces in the Philippines were on high alert, especially here on the Mindanao island.
The facility in Sibuguey Bay was bustling with activity. Once an ASCI facility, it had been overrun and taken over by IJAMEA when the Japanese took control of the Philippines. When news first arrived of the Westerners taking back Leyte, the facility's researchers began the mobilization of their eigenweapon. Originally planned to be built in the Mainland, plans changed to put pressure on the enemy. Or so he'd been told, anyway.
Kiyoshi didn't know what was really going on in the facility he was keeping watch for. All he’d been told was that it was the home to technology that would win the Empire the war. That was all he needed to know. He watched over the calm sea in front of him with fifty-some other young men like him, just as oblivious to the eigenweaponry under their very feet. The imperial ships he could spot from his position on the coast brought him comfort, knowing that any invading forces would likely be blasted out of the water by Japan's warships before they could get any closer. Kiyoshi let out a sigh, relieved at the thought of We-
An explosion erupted from the ocean, the force knocking the rifle out of his hands and Kiyoshi onto the ground. As he tried to collect himself, he heard screaming and shouting as his comrades scrambled aimlessly. He tried to reach over to grab his rifle when he was yanked up by one of his fellow soldiers, back into his own two feet. He barked some vague orders at Kiyoshi before pushing his rifle into his arms. Shaking his head and allowing his vision to focus, he looked out at the once-calm sea.
An imperial battleship, split in half, was sinking down below the ocean, oil spilling and burning away into the air. The remaining three battleships could be seen firing away at something below the water's surface, the blasts hurting his already damaged ears. It was the first time Kiyoshi had seen the ships firing at full force, and it was a sight to behold.
His arm was yanked from behind, forcing him to turn around and face one of his commanding officers. The man yelled in his face and threatened to hit him before pointing at a set of artillery installed near the shore. Kiyoshi ran over to his post, keeping an eye on the sea next to him.
The next few things happened so quickly, in a matter of seconds. To Kiyoshi, it felt like ten lifetimes.
First, he watched one of the ships vanish. There was a low, drumming noise right before it vanished, and a loud popping noise as the air rushed in to fill the space the ship had once occupied. There weren't any screams or any sounds of metal being destroyed, just a ship disappearing as if it were a magic trick.
Second, the ocean began to swell upwards as something emerged from underneath it. He caught a glimpse at whatever had come for them from below when another ship disappeared. His chest tightened at the sight of an enormous structure with five tendrils attached moved towards the remaining ship. It was a hand.
Finally, the last ship was pulled under the water, the large mechanical hand reaching out from underneath the waves and grabbing it from the middle. The hand was made from cogwork, and Kiyoshi could hear the whirring of the grinding gears from where he stood on the beach. It tightened its grip on the ship, crushing the metal that made up its hull like it was paper, dragging it down into the depths.
The mechanical beast - nay, the Umibōzu - emerged from the swelling sea. It towered over the beach and the men in front of it. The Umibōzu was, for the most part, constructed from clockwork and large gears, but there were segments of it that were obviously transplanted from something else, something fleshier.The Umibōzu appeared to have been constructed from the remains of other machines, cobbled together by the cogs that made up its main body, a moving creature the size of entire refineries. The bright red lights that served as its eyes shone down on the beach. Despite having no other features to express with, Kiyoshi felt as though it was looking at him with nothing but malice, grinning like an Oni despite having no mouth, spilling a searing, violent hatred that threatened to tear through his very being.
He watched as one of the many soldiers shot a single projectile at the demon from a mortar. He then watched as the Umibōzu threw half a battleship towards the mortar, a fifth of the beach disappearing under the weight of ten thousand tons of steel and corpses.
Kiyoshi watched as his fellow men scrambled to get to the remaining artillery and take shots at the Umibōzu. He wished to help them, to protect the Emperor and the Great Empire of Japan from this beast, but he couldn't find the willpower to move from where he was. He simply stood there, frozen as the battle began.
The beast began to make its way towards the shore, slowly lifting its legs through the water. As each joint moved Kiyoshi could hear loud, metallic screeches as the cogs within the Umibōzu worked tirelessly to make it move. It didn't react to any of the shots being taken at it, seemingly focused on the ground in front of it. Once it reached the water's edge, it reared back its hand, the same it used to demolish a ship just moments before, and slammed into the ground with enough force to tear through the rock and concrete underneath. Kiyoshi could hear distant sirens blare as he watched the beast move its head down to peek through the hole it made. It moved back and once again forced its hand down the hole. He could hear the sound of metal tearing underground as the Umibōzu pulled something out of the facility it had broken into.
The demon held up its prize, a mass of machinery and pipes wholly foreign to Kiyoshi. It had a pulsating aura of blue energy, which only became more intense the longer the beast held it up. With one slow motion, the beast threw the machine at a group of mortars shooting at it. It blew up in a puff of colours he’d never seen before; lights that hurt to look at.
It was at this point that Kiyoshi could finally feel his legs once more. He grabbed his gun from the sand and began running into the trees behind him. He knew he shouldn't be running, he knew he should be out there on the beach, helping his fellow people, but the explosions he heard behind him said otherwise. Maybe his survival could prove vital for the Empire, maybe he could warn them of this incoming threat, give them time to prepare, give them a chance to make a counter-attack. Yes, yes, that was it! That's why he was running. It wasn't out of cowardice, it wasn't out of fear or selfishness, he was doing it for the good of the Empire. For the good of the Emperor.
Kiyoshi was knocked to the ground as one of the beast's feet landed behind him, shaking the very land like an earthquake. Kiyoshi looked back as the Umibōzu stepped over, moving deeper into Mindanao after destroying the facility, ignoring what little artillery was left. The air around the demon was uncomfortably warm, but Kiyoshi felt himself cool down as a shadow moved over him. He looked up and, to his horror, saw the foot of the beast coming down on him. Before the foot crushed him, however, Kiyoshi looked up and saw it.
The heart of the beast.
Near the chest of the Umibōzu was a large, gaping hole, maybe from the projectiles shot at it from the beach, or maybe by design. Coming out of the hole were writhing, living tendrils of flesh. Deeper within the hole, Kiyoshi could barely make out a single, undulating mass of life. A fleshy orb of sinew and bone. The last thing he saw was a single, blue eye inserted into the pulsating mass of flesh.
The last thing he saw was the eye turning to glare at him.
SITE-6
WEAPONRY WORKED AS INTENDED STOP.
THREAT NEUTRALIZED STOP.
OPERATION DEEMED SUCCESSFUL STOP.
GOOD JOB
O5-7
Olaf passed the telegram to Noel, smiling. The two were sitting in Olaf's office, secluded from the rest of the workshop. Noel returned Olaf's smile when he finished the telegram, placing it on the empty chair between them.
"It worked. Fuck, it really did."
"Don't tell me you doubted our handiwork."
"Of course I did. I always do." Noel laughed. He patted Olaf's shoulder and went to the office's door. Before he left, he asked, "You still up for dinner tonight, right?"
"Yeah. I’ll be there." Olaf responded. Noel left and, as soon as he had left, Olaf slumped onto his chair. Finally, a moment of respite.
He picked up the telegram and read it one, two, ten times, the stupidest grin plastered on his face. Another job well done. He couldn't be more glad that his little, shoddy workshop had managed to impress the O5, and yet…
"… And yet the worker never really stops working." He muttered to himself. He got up, walking to the door, before turning around. He gave the office one last look then turned off the lights, locking the door as he left.
July 21st, 1946
Dear Doctor Olaf Lunden,
Upon reviewing your request, the O5 Council has voted in favour of it. Your performance during the 7th Occult War proved exceptionally valuable, allowing us to close the Pacific Theatre without major casualties.
The proper resources required to commence your Department will be delivered to you alongside this letter. I have taken on the burden of being your sponsor. If you have any questions, or wish to submit a proposal of any sort, please do so through me.
We here at Site-01 would like to congratulate you. Good luck with the Department of Anomalous Weapons Development, Director.
O5-7
