Project Assembly Line 8: Edward Marion

I got another download. I think it might be the final one of these.

It's called "pal8.pdf" and it's a file over Edward Marion. I think I know who's shadow that is.

This one is four and a half pages long. The cover page, then writing. This is what it said:

PROJECT ASSEMBLY LINE

SUBJECT #8: EDWARD MARION

Marionettes recreation of his last staff photo, circa [!error]

"NAME: EDWARD MARION

STATION: #85

POSITION: FOUNDER/MARIONETTES MASTER/HUMAN RESOURCES

When I awoke, I was laying in a room. Dark, outside of the dull glint of stars in the sky. The stars were wrong. Voices slithered out of the hole and surrounded me, chattering, curious as to why I ended up there, in front of them. Why was I special? What did I do to deserve this?

Nothing. I did nothing. That's what was so cruel, so terrible, so inhuman about it. Nothing created it. It just began, one day. Swimming between the broadcasts, slowly melding and shaping itself into what is known today. A signal of decay and control, living in the television. It took control. Awful deeds committed by its unwilling marionettes left a trail of destruction in its wake, until it propagated across the world. A sprawling, inorganic mass of perpetual disrepair and torment, wounds never given the chance to heal. This was the world I unwillingly helped created. The world it used me to create, while I was forced to sit in silence, unable to stop it. 

It controlled me, broke my body, but I was aware. I knew of all the horrible atrocities performed by my hands, forced to watch and feel as the planet slowly withered to ash. But there was nothing I could do. All that was left was for me to watch the show, as my heart and spirit shattered.

Maybe I was special because I was the first to see it. Or maybe it just happened that way, the same way it simply began one day. When it finished, when it achieved the perfect world it desired, it finally gave me up, leaving me alone in the ruins of what once was. With nothing left, I closed my eyes.

When I awoke, I was laying in a room. Dark, outside of the dull glint of their eyes in the sky. They were all wrong. Their voices slithered out of the opening and surrounded me, chattering, curious as to why I ended up here, in front of them. Why was I special? What did I do to deserve this? What would I do to earn this?

I offered them a new story. A story of heartache and loss, but of success, too. Of victory, in the end, after a long, arduous struggle. They were satisfied, won over by my tale, and sent me back to when it first began, before the world went wrong. Armed with the knowledge I now had and the restrictions they placed on its spread, I was able to contain it. Build a system that could contain it. Its story, its performance, was upstaged by my own. I was in control now.

But it was still alive. It was still awake. It was inevitable, really, that it would break free, tearing down the walls of my prison after it found a crack. An obvious exploit that I had somehow missed. All futures looked poisoned, tainted by its rain, tainted by the fear of what it could grow into, except for one. It had found a new tower to use, much the same way it used me in the shattered future, but it needed me, too. My deal with the watchful stars above ensured that. Since it was weakened, limited to the walls of my empire, maybe I could trap it in its new vessel, and force it to become dormant. To go to sleep, the same way I did when it had won. It thrived on its spread, so I'd remove all of it. All mention, all history, everything. Remove the experiences that kept it alive, and the corpses it had created and reanimated. I used my system to do so, and it worked. 

It worked.

It worked, until it didn't. Years waxed and waned, with me wasting away in the decayed remains of my plans, until 2016. That was when Riley saw Penelope. She wasn't supposed to; she didn't know why she needed to be kept apart from her love, but she agreed to my instructions, knowing that I knew best. 

And then they saw each other. Did Riley do it on purpose, disregarding my instructions? Did Penelope remember more than I thought, and seek Riley out? Did the endless stars watching me demand an encore, a better show? Or did it just happen, a coincidence none could have foreseen?

It doesn't matter now. In 2016, it awoke once more. I planned to bring Riley back, to tell her of its return, to search for a new, more permanent end. If my plan prior didn't last, we needed a new one. A better one. More thorough. I will never see that darkened room again, so I can't beg or bargain for a better future for us all.

She did not arrive. Years passed, and I was forced to look through the poisoned wells in the desert of possibility, until I found it, at the center of it all. One plan. One chance. One solution. A plan I once thought too horrible to consider, but one I'd now have to drink from. Erasing history didn't work, so I'd solidify its history, and chisel its extermination into permanence. Canonize its end. If they won't change the world again, then I will do it for them. There's only one thing to do. End the Signal by any means necessary.

It's okay. It is what we have to do. What I have to do. Penelope, this is the only ending where it takes its bow, and leaves the show. We'll do what we have to do.

Your hippocampus has been liberated. You remember, now, and know all you need to know. After this is your amygdala. What you need to do is face your fears, head on. I know you've been sitting in the same chair ever since it last tricked you, scared to even get up, lest you fall for its lies again, and help it. It uses your fear to control you. Break it. Do everything you can to prove it has no control over you. I know you can do this. One chance. One solution.

All will be well, Penelope. All will be calm. Be seeing you."

That's the end of the file.

He's right. I know all I need to know. I know what I have to do. I know what will happen if I fail. There's only one chance. One solution.

I know the audience is watching.