My name is Ella Normandy, and if you’re listening to this tape, I’m probably dead. I’ve been a private investigator for 12 years, and have been on the case that might have killed me for roughly 3 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days.

It all began when a prisoner on death row, woke up after the alleged “barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution” was administered. His name was Harold O’Neal, and he had caused 23 deaths and 314 injuries when he deliberately tipped over a vat of boiling metal on a foundry floor, directly onto his boss’s head.  After O’Neal woke back up, and was re-administered the serum, one of my more frequent patrons contacted me, and asked me to look into it.

     I’ve never met them, but they pay well, and are never late with their deposits. The cases they want answered are often linked to the government, and have gotten me in trouble before, but they pay extra whenever that happens. This time is different. This time, I’m in too deep to be satisfied with a hefty tip. This time will be my last run. The building of my retirement fund, so to speak. After this, if I survive it , I’ll retire somewhere with beaches and coconuts.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the case...It took me 3 long months to find out where the government took O’Neal. After the uproar caused by the lack of death in the “death” serum, they couldn’t just pretend to take his “corpse” to a morgue, so they tried to say that the morgue they had planned on using, was full. (The morgue had two bodies before the week of O’Neal’s “passing”.) The FBI agents in charge of the disposal of the “body”, then disappeared. They didn’t use their credit cards, the plate on their hearse was switched or dismantled, and none of them popped up on facial recognition software, anywhere! It was infuriating!

However, they weren’t perfect. They changed the plate, but when they did, they accidentally used one that was retired years ago, and didn’t have any license plate sticker registering them to Utah. After day or two of discrete travel, they crossed the border into Nevada, and all rumors dried up immediately. Sure they were hard to come by, but at least they were something! After they accidentally blew a stoplight, the trail went cold...FOR 5 FRICKEN WEEKS!! My clients were not too pleased with me, let me tell you.

However, the microwave of justice had not dinged it’s last . Almost 3 months  after the incorrectly administered death serum incident, the agents slipped up. They went to a small gas station about half-way between Indian Springs and the infamous Area 51, probably trying to get a stash of junk food. One thing they didn’t count on was the gas station change in ownership 2 months earlier. The new owner was a conspiracy theorist who was infamous for posting his government based findings. The owner, a Jacob Williams, immediately recognized the agent for who he was, and posted on his blog within 5 minutes of the agent’s departure from the store.

Luckily for me, I happened to be 20 minutes away in a coffee shop, clearing out my email, when I got a notification that William had a new post! It was titled Federal Agent Tried to Shut Down My Store! I clicked on the link and read through the article, and raced to my rental car, intent on trying to follow the agent’s trail. I rushed to the gas station, (going 15 over the speed limit),  and asked if Williams had any idea of where the agent had gone. Williams, the paranoid bastard, had quickly pulled his key tracker off his keyring, and plopped it into the agent’s bag of sweets. When I showed up, he handed me the receiver, and said, “Go give that FED a piece of my mind!” He proceeded to shout out some curse words, hopefully for me to give the agent.

I tracked him back to the secretive Area 51 base, before transmissions were cut, and my computer started to steam. I swore and threw it into the passenger seat of my truck. I assumed that security had found the tracker and dismantled it. That, or the agent wanted a snack, and had discovered it. After waiting for my computer to cool off, I slowly meandered through the desert for an hour, playing eye spy with myself.

Once I found the base, I cruised past it a couple of times before heading back to my hotel. I took a shower, and settled in to find the plans of the base. It only took 3 hours, and $100,000 of my client’s money, but I got them. I may have used some slightly less than legal means to find them, but I’ll either die soon or move far, far away, so it’s not like I’ll ever go to court for it.

The next day, after a lot of tricky fingaling to sneak onto the base, I was in. Just because I’m probably gonna die, doesn’t mean I’ll reveal my secrets to the government. How stupid do you think I am?! Anyway….I was crawling through the air ducts, trying to find a weak-looking, solitary guard and/or doctor to knock out, and impersonate. Kind of an oxymoron I know, but I didn’t have much of a choice if I wanted to find anything for my client. After an hour or two of looking, I finally found the one.

She was an unassuming intern who had dropped all her papers, and fell behind her group to pick them up. She even looked a bit like me, short, with a blunt, blonde bob. After shooting a blow dart at her neck, I waited for her to pass out.  Climbing out of the vent, I dragged her into a empty corridor to quick change, and ran after where her group had gone. Before I left, I clipped on a microlens to her security badge, and started running after the “my” group. The army personnel I passed all gave me almost disgusted looks. I wasn’t sure if it was for my running form, or what “Bailey Cooper” did for her job. But, I digress.

I caught up with Bailey’s group just as they reached a door marked in blazing red letters that stated, “Project SS 378-Viewing Area”. The ‘leader’ of the group turned around and gave me a condescending look, but said nothing. We entered the viewing area and I almost immediately turned around and left. Had it not been for the fact that this would be my last “mission”, I would have. Right before we went in, the leader started monologing about how this project would lead to a “glorious future for human weaponry”. I had no idea what he was talking about until he opened the door.

There were 20 cells in the lab, all occupied with “people” that looked no longer human. WIthin the first one we approached, I saw a….being that looked a little like Vanessa Thompson, A.K.A. the Electric Exterminator, a woman who used wall sockets to fry her victims’ brains, but she looked...melted. Her skin dripped off her body, gaping burns showing her muscles to the world, sparks of electricity zapping across the open sores.. Next to her, strapped down to a lab table, lay Brad Montgomery. the Coswan Cannibal, who was famous for abducting his victims, cutting of their hands and feet, and eating them front of his victims before killing them. His own hands and feet had been cut off, and replaced with scaly things that looked like the end of a snake, only dripping with slime that was being collected in buckets on the floor. He looked gaunt, with skin so dry it seemed to be peeling off, like a molting lizard.

I snapped out of my horrified staring as the leader of the group asked the guards in bring in experiment 913 to “teach the interns how it’s done”. Out came O’Neal, who I barely recognized. Slag pooled at his feet with every step, and would’ve burn through the floor if it didn’t cool the moment his foot pulled away. The guards escorting him used what looked like titanium chains to pull him around, and left as soon as O’Neal was placed on a flat slab of stone, and got locked into place. With 27 different restraints.

Then came the truly horrible part. The leader of the “scientists” had put on heavy welding equipment, and began to attempt to cut into O’Neal’s “body”, if you can even call that clunky slab of molten lava a body. The operator lectured us about the changes in core temperature, how long the lacerations lasted, and how deep he could cut into O’Neal before lava came pouring out over the wound, and so much more. After what felt like hours, O’Neal was placed back into his cell, and the “interns” were dismissed for 10 minutes to see to our bodily functions.

I stayed behind only long enough to make up an excuse to leave. Then I raced to the bathroom, and made it to the toilet just in time to heave up my crappy motel breakfast. I didn’t have any time to waste, because the intern I replaced could be waking up at any moment. I ran into an empty room, and crawled up into the vent shaft. I’ve been hiding up in the ducts for hours, trying to find a good way out.

Unfortunately, not ten minutes after I wiggled into these ducts,  the intern was found, and the entire base was put on high alert. No one has been allowed in or out. Not even the fricken SECURITY GUARDS! I’ve been passing the time making this recording and sending the video and audio feed of human experiments. Knowing how they operate, they’ll spread the information around, in the event that I won’t be able to. I just hope I have time to send this to them as well... All I want is to get out alive…

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Two guys in army fatigues pressed pause on the recording device. They link eyes, and in unison, mutter one word.

“Fuck.”