PROJECT FLOOD
INTRO
Project Flood is the second of three internal projects that Sharp Corner developed this year and here's a selection of the work we created for the universe.
After a terrible incident that caused the entrance gate to collapse and a giant flood that filled all the tunnels with water, most of the workers were trapped inside the mine with limited resources. So, the camps became veritable centers of habitation, and the communities living within them were now driven by a spirit of survival, with the reassuring hope that a team of specialists outside was working on a way to rescue them from this nightmare. And so it was; many were saved, and many more died. However, the company responsible for the extraction operation still wanted to resume activities. They took advantage of the embryonic structures the survivors had built around the base module, allowing them to expand the camps with more technologically advanced additions and modules. They then paid large rewards to anyone who wanted to stay on to continue the operation, despite the terrible discoveries made by the surviving technicians in exploring the more remote areas of the mine. Much of the team that survived the incident went back to work inside the mine.
The name of the operation and its ultimate intentions are information that still belongs in classified documents.
“The installation of the very first camps was supposed to be 'temporary.' Todd told me not to put insulation sleeves in the outer wall modules because we needed them to protect the main generators from all the steam produced by the reaming, and wear and tear on the structure wasn't really our problem. We were only going to stay in our freshly built camp for a couple of weeks, just long enough to finish the job and go home. Exactly.Now, the very first thing that comes to mind when I think of the word 'home' is a 35-foot tubular structure of rusted modular panels floating on 6 feet of water artificially channeled into a man-made dam of unknown size built inside a cave that is now impossible to geolocate from the outside”.
[Audio recording - over]
The maintenance of surveillance structures in the water and on land was essential to ensure the safety of the areas surrounding the camps. Replacement of broken parts was facilitated by the vast amount of abandoned machinery and infrastructure found in the extremely dense network of tunnels, which branched out on several levels. Most of these levels had never been visited, and some of the tunnels had existed long before the drilling began: markings on the walls and strange man-made structures suggested that someone had lived in these cavities, and creature bone remains indicated that a large and unknown ecosystem had dominated these spaces until the sudden change in water level (caused by the intense drilling) swept it away, leaving behind a grim, unpleasant, and unexplored environment.
For these reasons, it was essential to be armed and ready to deal with a wide range of threats during these recovery operations.
"I don't really know if anyone will ever find this improvised black box of mine, but I think I'll carry on with it because it's reassuring to have something to help me keep track of time.
Sunshine isn't an option here, and my pale skin is a testament to that. Today I managed to crossbreed two different types of white algae into a version that seems to provide me with more protein. It's very strange how any organism just becomes paler and paler without sunlight. I know it's probably a well-established fact for all the scientists who will hopefully analyze what's left of this experience, but I didn't know that. And it's not a pure white I'm talking about; beneath the pale surface of plants and algae, there's a hint of a color that's been muted, suppressed, and trapped under the constraints of physiology. I'm convinced that the same thing has happened on a grander, more inhuman scale in the dark recesses of this cave."
[Audio recording - over]
