adrenochrome.org

Case files

Background on the Halcyon Research Complex, the people who worked there, and the programme that ran on its sub-level. Everything in this section is fiction written for the game.

An abandoned records office with filing cabinets, a counter and a terminal, lit by a single desk lamp.

· 5 min read · In-world fiction

Why this story is told on paper

The records office, the day book, and the difference between a record and a system

Halcyon kept eight separate paper systems that were never designed to be read against each other. That is exactly why they can be.

A framed 1985 institutional staff photograph with cracked glass, four of the faces scored out with a ballpoint pen.

· 7 min read · In-world fiction

Who was in the building on 12 November 1986

Four people were on shift that night. Four faces have been scored out of the staff photograph.

The duty roster, the time cards, the visitor register and the night watch log all name the same four people. So does the damage to a framed photograph in the locker room.

An abandoned observation room with a one-way mirror, a desk and a chair turned to face away from the glass.

· 6 min read · In-world fiction

The observation protocol, in plain language

What a night at Halcyon actually consisted of, from admission to the morning interview

Eight hours, one fixture, one observer, one chart. The procedure was simple enough to fit on a card, which is what makes the deviations from it so easy to see.

Four card sleeves on a steel bench holding squares of theatrical lighting gel, three still full and the fourth, stamped 114, empty.

· 5 min read · In-world fiction

Colour designation 114

What "adrenochrome" means inside this story, and what it does not

In this game the word is the catalogue name of a lighting gel and nothing else. Here is the in-world provenance of that name, why the programme used it, and why one sleeve in the vault is empty.

The intake vestibule of an abandoned institutional building at night, rain on the glass doors and a turnstile in the centre of the floor.

· 6 min read · In-world fiction

The Halcyon Research Complex

What was built on the headland at Cold Harbor, and what each floor of it was for

Four floors, two of them below the waterline, built for a sleep laboratory that ran for eight years and closed in a fortnight. A plain description of the building the game takes place in.