Concept Package · Original IP
It was built to tell the country what time it is. Four days ago it started transmitting something else.
The Concept
Objekt 4 is a civilian radio science station: ionospheric research, deep-space listening, and the transmitter that carries the national time signal — the hourly pips, into every kitchen radio in the country. Four days ago the receiving array logged a carrier on a frequency that should not exist. It has no message. It simply hums. And it is now inside the people who work here.
The signature is delivered through the building itself: low-frequency tactile transducers in the floors, handrails and wall skins, so the hum arrives in the guest's chest and teeth rather than their ears, climbing room by room. The pre-show tells everyone to cover their ears. Every guest tries it. It does nothing — and in about four seconds they understand exactly what happened to the three hundred people who worked here.
Look & Feel
Four days, not forty years. Food still on trays, lights on, machines running — no rust, no dust, no decay. Institute green and bone cream, with amber as the only living colour. Amber is the hum.
The Guest Journey
Room by room
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01Decontamination
Plastic sheeting and a bin overflowing with ear defenders. You are told to cover your ears
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02The Tiled Corridor
A worker standing far too close, arms at his sides. The stillness is the threat
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03The Receiving Hall
Where it came in. Every meter pinned hard right, and nobody here at all
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04The Computer Hall
Tape reels and toggle banks — and operators with their hands clamped over their ears
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05The Test Chamber
An anechoic room. All sound dies. The floor keeps humming
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06The Canteen
The whole workforce, seated, turned to face you. One has not turned round
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07The Mast Base
Outside, under the array — the one open breath before the end
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08The Transmitter Hall
Valves glowing hot amber, running at a level nobody set
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09The Control Room
The clock reads exactly on the hour, and the hum goes out on the pips
Moments
The Cast
Stage 0 — Untouched. Lucid, terrified, still working
Stage 1 — Carrying
Stage 2 — Resonant
Stage 3 — Broadcast
The Cleaner — still mopping, still losing
Lab Technicians — two stages of the same illness
The Operator — headset on when it arrived
The Station Director — still in charge
Design Notes
You cannot cover your ears
The hum is tactile, not audible — transducers in the floor and rails deliver it into the body on a curve that climbs to the finale. Covering your ears is the one defence the maze invites, and the one that cannot work.
The infection, staged
Untouched, Carrying, Resonant, Broadcast — four stages of one illness, distributed room by room, while the unaffected keep working around them.
Silence as a weapon
The Test Chamber removes airborne sound entirely. It costs nothing, and it resets the guest's ears so the transmitter hall lands at full force.
Concept imagery generated with AI from the author's written design direction. Story, world, route, cast and design are original work.