FR3d1 OS v2.0
Copyright (C) 1989-2024, Rusty Quill Ltd.
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Initializing M.01 ... OK
Initializing J.02 ... Ok
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Welcome, employee of the Office of Incident Assessment and Response, to the FR3-d1 system! Type 'help' for help.
Classify each incident under two of the following categories (choose 1 from each column, and input both into DPHW command):
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| agglomeration (miscellany) | intimidation [999 call] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| architecture (liminal) | compulsion [autopsy report] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| collection (blood) | trespass [chat log] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| dice (bone) | hunger [coursework] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| disappearance (undetermined) | congregation [email] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| doppleganger (interdimensional) | regret [email] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| gambling (application) | compulsion [email exchange] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| hunt (aristocratic) | frenzy [insurance claim] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| infection (full body) | invitation [internet blog] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| injury (needles) | arboreal [journal entry] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| mascot (kids) | musical [letter] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| memory (derelict) | growth (crystalline) [letter] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| reanimation (partial) | fate [magnus statement] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| tattoo (corpse) | murder [magnus statement] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| tattoo (influencer) | social media (influencer) [recording] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| transformation (canine) | horde [report] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| transformation (eyes) | murder [TV interview] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| transformation (full) | cardiac [video blog] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| transformation (snake) | dysmorphic [video call] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| transformation (tattoo) | compulsion [voicemail] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| | self-destruction [voicemail] |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
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• help [command name] | View a more detailed explanation of how to use a given command from this list.
• about | View further information about this system and your job.
• incident [incident number] | Select the incident to view.
• classifications | View a list of the different classifications an incident may be sorted into.
• dphw "[classification 1]" "[classification 2]" | Find the DPHW code of an incident using the two classifications chosen from the previous command.
• file [incident number] [DPHW code] | File away the specified incident using its DPHW code.
• archive | View previously-filed incidents.
• start "[program name]" | Open an executable program.
• explorer | View program files on this device.
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| ___| ___ |____ | | / |
| |_ | |_/ / / /______ __| `| |
| _| | / \ |______/ _` || |
| | | |\ \.___/ / | (_| _| |_
\_| \_| \_\____/ \__,_\___/
FR3-d1_OIARSTF_REC_DB
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RECORDING 12042024-STFGBOU-CELL
SUBJECT EXTGWIL "INK5OUL"
TRANSCRIPTION FOLLOWS:
I remember the first time I blew up. It was a wolf design I inked over a client's heart. I'd never have thou-
ght of it as my best work, but I took a photo of it for the feed anyway. My hand had slipped ever so slightly
at the edge of the mouth. Nothing the client would notice, but - it turned the snarl into more of a cheeky l-
ittle grin? [CHUCKLES] Everyone really liked that. It was reposted by HellYesTattoos and suddenly my 79-foll-
ower account was getting thousands of favourites, hundreds of new followers and so many lovely messages. They
were trawling through all my old work, really amateur stuff, but still. They left the nicest comments.
Next came the haters who were sick of "smirking wolf." "Sloppy work," they said. They didn't see the appeal,
didn't understand why everyone was sharing it.
Those messages hurt. They hurt a lot more than the nice ones boosted me, but... it was still thrilling, you
know? Knowing that a stranger looked at you and saw someone important, someone worth getting angry about. I
didn't feel... good? I felt important.
Maybe I should have resisted that feeling more, but. Why would I? These people wanted to hold me up, tell me
I'm better than them, I'm special. Why should it be on me to convince them otherwise? Why should I spend my
life scrabbling in the dirt, telling them, "I'm just like you, honest!", when I'm not. I'm better than them.
I must be, otherwise they wouldn't all spend so much of their time thinking about me.
The next year was hard. First my follower-count plateaued, then it started to drop. I was churning out arty
shots of my work but nothing was catching any more, nothing was making it past my little ring of hardcore fa-
ns and out into the culture. No-one was looking at me! At one point I made a bit of a mess of a client's Sat-
an design and it got posted on that OopsTattoo blog. It got more traction than all my other recent posts com-
bined. So for the next few months I deliberately started having "accidents" with clients' tattoos. All it go-
t me was a black eye and a handful of refunds.
I was getting desperate. I needed to be seen again.
That's when I found Oscar Jarrett. He was a pupil of Sutherland Macdonald, do you know anything about him? He
was this pioneering tattoo artist back in Victorian times - really popular, tattooed Prince Albert's cock or
something, and everyone adored him. Anyway. He had a bunch of students and one of them was Oscar Jarrett. I
learned later there were all sorts of stories around him, rumours of him doing hand-tapped tattoos with shar-
pened human bones, mixing strange chemicals into his ink, all that sort of stuff. I doubt any of that's true
myself. Don't get me wrong, his work was... [SNORT] unique, but I know better than anyone how important bran-
ding is. He probably just needed the mystique.
Either way, not many of Jarrett's original designs are still around, and he's not very well remembered. I st-
umbled across an old photo of one of his designs in a 1930s book. I'd taken to hunting down vintage inkwork
books, as people were less likely to notice when I lifted a design from some old obscure artist. My own stuff
clearly wasn't cutting it, so I had to try something else. Anyway - this photo, it stopped me in my tracks.
The guy was old, clearly in his 70s or something, but the skin under the ink? Pristine. Smooth as a newborn.
And the design was so crisp it might have been done a week before? It was an abstract sun design on his shou-
lder, shaded in this dull, muted yellow, and there was a black dot in the centre that if you really squinted,
you could see was an intricate network of crosshatched lines. The round edge of the sun was ragged and wavy,
and I could almost feel the warmth of it. It was labelled "Fig. 3. One of the few surviving examples of Oscar
Jarrett," and I knew right then that I had found the design that was going to save me, that would put me bac-
k into the spotlight.
He was called Harry, the man who would bear my mark. He'd asked for a "tarot-inspired sun" on his back, and I
knew this was my best chance. I worked for almost a full week to try and properly copy the design from the p-
hoto. I didn't quite manage, but it was close enough that it gave me a bit of the same sense of heat. Of cou-
rse, Harry didn't like it. I think he just wanted a basic riff on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. So I lied and
showed him a safer, tacky magic-shop design that he loved to get him on the table. After all, once he was fa-
ce-down, I could put whatever I liked into his skin. Don't forget: I'm the artist. He was just the canvas. B-
esides, I had slaved over that design.
He started screaming about twenty minutes into the session. He said it burned, that it felt like his whole s-
houlder was on fire. He didn't move, though. It was like he was nailed down as my ink spread across his skin,
the smell of scorched flesh filling the room. He stopped screaming by the time I finished. Just... whimpers
at the end. I cleaned off the blood and took my photos, and for all the smell, it didn't look like there had
been any burning at all. Harry stumbled out like the drunk he was, not even bothering to put his shirt back
on. At first I was worried for when he'd be back to complain about the design I had actually given him, but -
I never saw him again. At least, not in person. Saw his picture on a news site though. He'd been killed in a
house fire. The story got decent exposure actually.
Didn't matter, though. His part was already done: canvas complete. What mattered was what people thought of
the work. And oh, how they loved it! Followers, views, messages and... sponsorships. It wasn't much, really.
Almost nothing in cash terms, but it wasn't about the money - I have a small inheritance that takes care of
that - it was about the respect. The adulation. The love. They started calling me an "influencer," a "bold n-
ew voice in skin art." I started making all these connections, hanging out with other influences whose follo-
w-counts dwarfed even mine! I had arrived.
My old friends didn't get it, of course. They might have even believed it when they said they were worried f-
or me, that it was out of love, but it was just plain jealousy. Not a great loss to me when they dropped awa-
y. They were never very photogenic.
But a handful of pictures do not a career make! And so after another lull where I pushed through some more of
my own designs, I had to admit to myself that - my skill, my real skill, was in adapting Oscar Jarrett. If a-
nything, I was doing him a favour - nobody remembered him at all, but thanks to me, his designs were fresh a-
nd relevant. Besides, it's not like he was around to miss out or anything.
Finding other pictures of his designs was difficult, but not impossible. There were a few obscure corners of
the central European tattooing scene that had some records of him, and for a while, I was able to get pictur-
es of ones I hadn't done before. But after those dried up... Well, I'd managed to source an old ledger from
his shop that listed most of his clients and I had discovered an interesting little quirk of his ink: none of
the skin touched by it decayed at all. Even after death, they were all flawless. Soon I had quite the collec-
tion.
The other problem, of course, was that designs based on Jarrett's originals were brilliant for socials, but
not so good for the clients. Those old Victorian inks seemed to last forever, but my adaptations definitely
didn't. It was very difficult keeping canvases still on the more complex designs, and after I was done they
would usually end up having... grotesque experiences.
That didn't matter so much to me once the pictures were captured and posted online, but after a while, the p-
olice did notice a definite, if unprovable, connection between my tattoos and a series of... rather disturbi-
ng accidents. Eventually, it was easier to just use some... chemical cocktails to keep clients quiet, and be-
come a bit more "nomadic" when it came to studios.
Funny thing, all this only seemed to add to the mystique! The fans ate it up! And all these empty warehouses
gave me some space to think and reflect. Everyone wants a piece of you when you're this famous.
I don't remember when my own tattoos began to change. I know it was around the same time I started craving...
"the look" more. Not the pleasure in a client's eyes when they see their new skin, but the one I saw just be-
fore they went under: terror. Helplessness. And the certainty that they would wake up changed in a way they
could not understand. It filled me up in a way... I can't quite explain, but - I've never felt any other time
. And as it did so, inside my skin, the ink - There! Do you see it?
Jarrett doesn't matter now. The ink flows through me and out of me, transforming the lucky into something ne-
wer and more beautiful than their own shallow tastes could ever have conceived.
But... [SIGHS] I don't... understand it. There's something inside me that remembers worrying about... I'm not
sure. Did I always want to hurt people? To make them afraid? It's so much a part of me now that maybe it alw-
ays was. Have I changed, or have I simply emerged?
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