Date: August 14, 1969 | Interviewer: Dr. R. Arishad (Kansas Hub-06)

Dr. Arishad: Marcus, your supervisor reports you walked off the line at 10:15 AM. Your assigned objective for the shift was terminal wiring synchronization. Why did you leave your station?

Subject 4092: I couldn't hold the soldering iron, Doc. I... I wanted to go outside. Just for five minutes. I wanted to look at the sky.

Dr. Arishad: You deviated from the target focus metric. Did you experience the baseline course-correction?

Subject 4092: (Agitated scratching noises recorded) As soon as I took two steps away from the bench, my arms started burning. It felt like someone poured boiling grease under my skin. By the time I reached the exit door, my chest and neck erupted in heavy hives. Huge, bursting welts. It felt like my skin was exploding from the inside out to keep me from turning the doorknob.

Dr. Arishad: The micro-fluctuations in your retina are designed to signal the nervous system when non-compliant choices are made. The hives are simply an indicator of internal cognitive dissonance. Did you return to the bench?

Subject 4092: Yes. Yes, sir. As soon as I picked up the iron again... the burning stopped. The welts faded in seconds. I don't want to go outside anymore. Please. Just make the humming in my ears go away.

Date: November 03, 1970 | Interviewer: Evelyn Cross (Director of Intake)

Subject 3118: I haven't closed my eyes since Thursday, Miss Cross. Every time I drift off, the flashing grid from the Niyoscope appears on the inside of my eyelids.

Evelyn Cross: The Model-IV conditioning requires permanent visual retention to maintain the focus matrix. Your brain is simply processing the optimization cues.

Subject 3118: No, you don't understand. It's been five days. I am hallucinating. I hear Dr. Vane's voice repeating the third pillar through the breakroom vents. My body screams that it's exhausted, but the ocular nerve is completely awake. It won't let the rest of my brain sleep. It forces me to stay awake, reading the same instruction manuals over and over. If I try to close my eyes for more than a minute, the hives start on my face. Please, just let me sleep.

Evelyn Cross: Case file marked as Saturation Complete. Increase hydration serum to three cups daily to stabilize the optic pathway.

Author: Lucy Peralta (Internal Routing Security)

Vane thinks the system is airtight. He thinks because he can force-feed them water and keep the strobe cylinders looping indefinitely that the subjects will stay broken forever. He doesn't know I found the backdoor gateway.

They have Subject 118 hooked up to the continuous live matrix in the basement storage locker right now. The feed is streaming on a secure closed circuit. If anyone finds this, you have to use the final terminal command to intervene. His brain can't take much more of the loop.