[✔] Inoculation complete. You may proceed.

COMMUNICABILITY INDEX: For adherence to the DoMc personnel Code of Linguistic Integrity, the information contained herein is 100% accurate and readily communicable through textual, pictorial, visual, audial, and subliminal means. Questionable personnel are to proceed to the Site-96 Medical Wing for the administration of Class-A Veritants, and if necessary, subsequent administration of Class-C Amnestics .

Item Number: Dr. Michaels

Containment Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: Dr. Michaels is not in danger. The personal well-being of Dr. Michaels is to be ensured. To this end, Dr. Michaels is kept at Site-96 and is not permitted to interact with personnel unless they are directly involved in his research and containment.

A custodial team will follow Dr. Michaels throughout the day and sanitize the area after he leaves. No member of this staff is permitted to discuss their duties or the situations surrounding them.

Description: Doctor Jeremy Feldson Michaels is a non-anomalous human male of British-Indian descent, currently employed as a Level-3 Researcher at Site-96. Dr. Michaels is 33 years of age and has worked for the Foundation for 8 years. He is unmarried and an only child, with no immediate family aside from his parents.

Addenda Materials

I. Personal Safety Assessment Battery

VIDEO LOG

DATE: 2019/10/20

TIME: 08:16 UTC

FOREWORD: Dr. Michaels is an asset to the Foundation due to his competencies in the fields of linguistics and miscommunications. The use of a Personal Safety Assessment Battery (or PSAB) is necessary to identify risks to his personal well-being. Designated personnel conducted the PSAB inside a locked containment chamber to identify issues with Dr. Michaels' mental health.

[BEGIN LOG]

A recent image of Dr. Michaels. Immediate surroundings redacted.

Interviewer: Okay, so just tell me your name — as is protocol — and we'll start. How does that sound?

Dr. Michaels: [He takes a deep breath.] Okay, my name is Doctor Jeremy Feldson Michaels.

Interviewer: Perfect, now–

[Interviewer glances above Dr. Michaels' head and shifts in their seat.]

Interviewer: Um, sorry. So anyway, you checked in with the Site Psychiatrist yesterday. Now, this is meant to be a sort of follow-up to your visit. Can you tell me about how it went?

Michaels: Yes, well, I've been a bit foggy for the past little while now. You know how that is — we all get that way when we're stationed away from our families, right?

Interviewer: Hmm, could you be more specific? How does this "fogginess" manifest?

Michaels: I have a constant looming feeling that I can't get out of my head. Like something just won't let go. I am speaking metaphorically, of course.

Interviewer: Do you know roughly when this feeling began?

Michaels: I would say right after we lost D-4428-3. Like, within seconds.

Interviewer: [They write on a note-pad.] Right, okay, so you had a traumatic experience.

Michaels: It was something like that.

Interviewer: This particular D-Class was part of your personal research team. Am I correct in stating that?

Michaels: You are.

Interviewer: Who else was on the team?

Michaels: Well, in no particular order, that would be Agent Rosewood, D-4428-1,

D-4428-2, Containment Engineer Howard Winters, and Researcher Gabi Kalpana.

Interviewer: I see. So Jeremy, would you say these feelings are recurring?

Michaels: No. Well, it comes and goes. Sometimes it pulls me down harder than I expect.

Interviewer: All right. Your files say your family has no history of traumatic experiences — ah, except for your brother. Do you have a brother, Jeremy?

Michaels: I do have a brother, yes.

Interviewer: The doctor referred to him as a "stressor", can you explain? What happened to him?

Michaels: Well, I couldn't tell you where he is now. It's not that I don't know. It's that I don't want to bring him up.

Interviewer: Correct me if I'm wrong… Your brother was a source of hostility toward you.

Michaels: He was an arsehole, sure, but with him, it was more insidious than that. My parents took him in when he was a kid, and he was my foster brother ever since, and we did get along fairly well. When we were growing up, though, something inside him snapped. After that, all he ever did was weigh our family down.

Interviewer: And that's when he was hostile?

Michaels: He wasn't confrontational — it wasn't like that — it was as if he was a dead weight on all of us, but especially on me. We grew up together, after all, and he was the most attached to me. When I went off to university, though, he– Well, he wouldn't let me go.

Interviewer: The doctor's notes say you called him a– What was it? You called him "a parasite".

Michaels: [He tenses up for a brief moment, and then sighs and regains his composure.] I wanted to be on my own, that’s all. But when I was getting moved in, weeks after last seeing him, he was just there. I was hundreds of miles away, but he was there somehow. He's done this to other people, too. I– We weren't the first.

Interviewer: Gotcha. [They flip through pages.] Now, Jeremy, what is your favorite color?

Michaels: Pur– No, wait, maybe we can just skip that one.

Interviewer: Are– Uh, you sure?

Michaels: Just go to the next question.

Interviewer: [They pause, putting a hand up to their ear, hidden from the recording device.] Actually, Dr. Michaels, you were here for the sewage backup, were you not?

[Dr. Michaels nods.]

Interviewer: I recently got a report that they found the source of that, actually. One of the security personnel — they found a huge pipe burst in one of the abandoned basement sub-levels. It was an absolute flood down there. Nobody is sure of the cause, though.

Michaels: Just now?

Interviewer: No, it was about a week ago now. They sent down a task force and lost one in the muck, and when they came back to look for them, it was as if they were incapacitated. They were fine, but they moved too slowly.

Michaels: Okay.

Interviewer: [They inhale sharply and lean forward in their chair.] The task force said they felt fogginess, too, as you did.

Michaels: Did they, now? Huh, how coincidental.

Interviewer: Indeed.

[END LOG]