XX-44 - "The Death Department"

Category: XX

Current Attitude: Hostile

Containment Procedure:

• XX-44 except for terms agreed by Mediators is to remain no higher than Floor 31 of the Foundation Containment Facility.
• Foundation Staff are not to traverse below Floor 31 of the Foundation Containment Facility.
• 64 explosive charges are to be kept primed on structurally integral points of the Foundation Containment Facility. The detonator remains in the hands of Dr Cross.
• Construction contractors are to be kept on standby with at minimum 1000 cubic metres of concrete to be activated with not more than 24 hours notice.

Description: An unremarkable skull

Very early on in the history of the Cross Foundation, researchers started to posit that the very concept of death itself had qualities consistent with the sorts of phenomena that the Foundation was devoted to investigating. It was hard to describe the exact sensation, people would always have feelings about it, and there was something unquantifiable yet evidently there about death and the dead. These investigations led to a surprisingly persistent corner of the Foundation that insisted on following up every case of supposed resurrection, near death experiences or supposed contact with “the other side”.

Of course, with a fear and fascination of death being so prevalent in most human cultures and a significant portion of the Foundation convinced that the entire Mortality Research Project – known by its unofficial name “The Death Department” – was a waste of time, those who did insist on being part of it were constantly kept busy with false reports, unverifiable accounts and a trips to visit fraud after fraud claiming to have the ability to contact “beyond the grave”.

Despite the continuous failure to produce anything worthwhile, the Mortality Research Project did continue to be funded just enough to keep at least one or two researchers busy at all times. Usually it was considered a punishment assignment and the Death Department not only became a nickname but being assigned there was considered “Career Death” as well as simply nothing useful happened there: at least, that is, until March 1930.

A file sent on April 1st, 1930, from the Patent Observation Team to the Mortality Research Project was absolutely meant to be a joke. Registered on March 4th by one Ms. Helene Shelby, there was obviously no way that the “Apparatus for Obtaining Criminal Confessions” with a note from the Patent Team saying “DEAR DEATH DEPARTMENT, FOR YOUR INFORMATION: THE CRIME SKELETON” was meant to be taken in any other way than a bit of humour for the season. Yet, bored out of their wits, the researchers in the project at the time – Dr. Alison Witts and Mr. Pierre Martin – jumped at a chance to get out into the field and investigate, particularly since it took them to the United States on Foundation budget.

They did not return, and the only record of what happened was taken directly from Mr Martin's notebook, recovered in 1931 from a follow-up trip to Ms. Shelby during which the artefact known as XX-44a was recovered:

When we arrived at Ms. Shelby's house we found, as expected, a complete farce. The prototype recreated the patent for an apparatus in which a suspect would be sent into a dark room with nothing but a skeleton with glowing red eyes and a camera behind it and it was as ridiculous as we had assumed. Nothing fantastical or supernatural about it. Yet, now given attention by professionals, Ms. Shelby insisted that she was onto something. Given we'd travelled out all the way to the U.S. we humoured Ms. Shelby and listened to her explanation.

The prototype, she admitted, didn't work. It was a poor facsimile of something else but she swore on her life that it worked. “What,” Witts scoffed, “you have an actual red-eyed crime skeleton that makes you confess your sins?”. “Yes,” Shelby replied, “would you like to see it?”

“Obviously we said yes: apparently it's stored at a local church mausoleum. Will report back tomorrow.”

Heading to follow up on two missing Investigators, staff visiting Ms Shelby in 1931 were a lot more vigilant and took fewer chances. Not only did they recover the aforementioned notebook, but they also returned with what presumably Witts and Martin had gone to see before they disappeared. Referred to as “X-600”, this item was simply a skull. No attempts were made to investigate it beyond removing it from the mausoleum until it was back in Foundation hands, but passengers and crew on the flight back from the U.S. with the skull on board report having had visions of their own end and imagined multiple times the plane crashing and burning. Investigators also reported that multiple times they found Crew desperately attempting to enter the cargo hold where the skull was being kept, insisting they “had to” get in there.

The transportation of X-600 continued to be fraught. Travel by road proved equally dangerous with drivers repeatedly swerving to avoid what they swore was an oncoming collision but couldn't be seen, and the weather would constantly become dreary and grey wherever the transport moved. By the time it made it to the Foundation's vaults, no fewer than three separate Investigators had to be dispatched to meet the convoy to take over transportation as the previous ones would regularly abandon the truck midway along a road.

Eventually, X-600 made it to the vaults where it was immediately sealed at the highest security level. No further research was performed for two decades as few researchers could stand to be close to it for long, many claiming to have seen visions of loved ones dying or worse. The Mortality Research Project was, of course, assigned to researching it, but now instead of being seen as a career death sentence the “Death Department” became a feared assignment.

It took the Foundation a shameful amount of time to realise when people being assigned to The Death Department weren't coming back, but in 1988 an Incursion occurred from within the Death Department depths of the Vault and Foundation staff found themselves facing down their own colleagues and corpses wearing the faces of their friends and family, the scope of the mistake became known. After multiple days of harrowing fighting, a stand-off was eventually reached as the Foundation threatened to collapse the entire section of the vault it had claimed and fill it with cement. “The Death Department”, now speaking in aggregate and referred to as XX-44 by Foundation Staff, retaliated by claiming that if the skull was destroyed its power would emanate out into the world and demanded to be allowed to operate from its domain.

While curious about the reason that XX-44 wouldn't just allow for itself to have its power emanate out, no order came from above to destroy the lower levels of the Foundation vaults as XX-44 also refused to advance further into the Foundation until eventually Mediators proposed a compromise: the exact nature of this compromise remains classified other than that some number of individuals from the Death Department were permitted to leave the Foundation. In the meantime, XX-44 has neither been destroyed nor attempted to destroy the facility and the case is listed as “Ongoing”.

• XX-44 is incredibly dangerous and demonstrates deep understanding of human fear of death. It is clearly capable of causing hallucinations and agitating those within its remit. Beware that it can and will try to cause you terror to manipulate you.
• The compromise with XX-44 is an ongoing situation: be wary when trying to reason with it that you may end up altering the terms of that bargain.
• Though it is not known to be directly linked to the event of death itself, XX-44 is known to have its attention drawn by death or the dead.
• Though originally brought in as a single artefact, XX-44 is now believed to be capable of manifesting through the bodies any of those who were assigned to the Mortality Research Project in the last 60 years.