Spoilers ahead
This page may contain story spoilers! Proceed at your own risk...
Documenting the things ARDA employees and other Zone denizens do in their spare time.
These in-game documents can be found scattered throughout the Zone, and then stored inside of the Fax Machine at the Auto Shop.
Off The Job #1: Anomaly Parasailing with Pickpockets
You wanted to know how we went parasailing?
It’s simple. Get a light parachute or a well-secured piece of fabric. Harness it to yourself. Grab a pair of skis, too. Oh, and make sure you know how to ski a little bit first.
Tie yourself securely to some good bait, like a vehicle or large piece of equipment. Make sure it’s heavy enough that a Pickpocket can’t move too fast with it, or lift it too far into the air. You don’t want much altitude here! Use about forty feet of rope and give yourself some slack.
Brace yourself on your skis and unfurl the parachute behind you. As the Pickpocket latches on and starts to pull the bait, let it tug you along, adjust the slack, until you get enough speed that the parachute unfurls behind you and begins to generate lift…
Sent By: Yang Luo
Off The Job #2: A New World View
They told me that working in the Zone would change my view of the world. That it would be the refresher I needed, open me up to new possibilities.
I assume they meant the work itself. Or perhaps they meant all the new people I’d meet. My life before was all airframe designs in the rust belt, then suddenly, I’m surrounded by the most talented engineers from all around the country and beyond. There are even female scientists here. It’s taken me a while to get used to all the accents, all the new surnames.
And yet, it wasn’t the things I saw here, nor my meeting of new people that turned my world upside down.
I don’t know how to say this. I’m scared.
The divorce was finalized last week. People have been telling me that I should date again. That this is the point where I can define myself as a new person.
But what if it isn’t a woman that I want to date this time? There’s this colleague of mine—nevermind, I shouldn’t go into specifics, don’t want to get anyone in trouble. It’s just—I wonder—what does this say about who I am? Why do I feel this way now, at the age of thirty-six?
Nobody told me how to prepare for this. Nobody has ever talked about something like this. There’s this one researcher in the Red Meadow labs that might feel the same—I can’t ask. But I can’t deny what I want and how I feel. Still, that doesn’t mean I can even begin to understand it.
From the journal of A.R.
Off The Job #3: A Happy Anomaly Halloween
“Alright, everyone ready? Let’s start the Riverwood Elementary Halloween Costume Contest. Can we get a big hand as our first contestants take the stage?
Let’s start with Curtis, who appears to have dressed as a Boom Bunny? This is just terrific. Look at the detail you’ve captured here. And the way this catches the light! How did you do that? Kitchen foil? Fantastic.
Wow, okay, more Anomalies? Erica and Wei are a pair of Swarmers! Your commitment to this is extraordinary and the colors are just divine. Aren’t you two the cutest? Oh, look, they’re doing a dance routine! Okay, maybe cut the cameras, ARDA’s not going to like this being televised to the rest of the Zone—”
Transcribed from the Riverwood Elementary archives
Off The Job #4: To Canada and Back Again
Here’s the secret to getting in and out of the Zone: we take a launch from Port Angeles. From there, we head north for thirteen miles until we hit Vancouver Island. And then we’re in Canada!
We hide the boat there, then take a short ride into Victoria. Canada’s lowered its minimum drinking age, so the next time we go, all you new recruits should join us. The whole trip, from the port to the first bar, takes a bit more than an hour. We leave and we come back under cover of darkness and nobody even knows you left your beds. Just don’t bring anything with you, okay? I think someone left an Anchor in Canada last week. I’m still in the process of tracking it down.
Sent By: Maria Wolff
Off The Job #5: Putting on a Play
ZONED OUT: A Play in Five Acts
Main Roles
TIMOTHY VAN ALLEN as Peter the Cartographer
ENRIQUE ESTEVEZ as Oscar the Inventor
LUCY TRATTON as Gillian the Botanist
SIMONE DUPONT as Isabelle the Mutant Tree
WALLACE DUVALL as BIGFOOT
Act I, Scene I - A forest in a storm
Enter PETER with his mapping tools, followed by HARRIET his colleague
Peter: Gosh, this is the most ghastly weather. One wonders what possessed any of these people to decide to move to this most frightful land.
Harriet: Oh Peter! I just can’t go on! I’m so dreadfully exhausted. I feel I shall expire should I take but one more step.
HARRIET is overcome
Peter: Harriet! But only you knew the path back! And your map, it’s soaked through! Oh, this wicked wood could well have its way with us. I must find shelter. But wait, is that…
Suddenly there is A NOISE.
Off The Job #6: Merchandising Ideas (Part 1)
I SURVIVED THE BILE PILE sweatshirts, available in acid green or gooey purple
SPIKE LOG baseball caps, with furry tops
FORGET THE COFFEE, I NEED MY MORNING JOLT t-shirts, white or grey
For more information about any of the above, contact Lucy, c/o ARDA Logistics
Off The Job #7: Merchandising Ideas (Part 2)
Squeaker/dog toy Dust Bunny
Spike Puddle bath mat
ARDA logo beer mats
100 ZONE-RELATED PUNS by Lucy Landowski
For more information about any of the above, contact Lucy, c/o ARDA Logistics
Off The Job #8: ARDA Seizure of Land
They took our land today. Officially. Signed, sealed and delivered. Six acres that have been with us since my grandfather's time. It doesn't have to include the boathouse, they said, but what does that matter? What use is that to us now, by itself, without even any kind of access?
The documents called it expropriation, which I suppose is their fancy way of hiding the truth. This is eminent domain, all performed on behalf of people I won't meet and can't even name. This isn't the work of any senator, or even the governor. This is the faceless monster that is ARDA, growing ever outward. They paid us for the value of the land, but they can't put value on our lives, our history, our ties. On how much this all really means to our family.
To cap it all, I had another argument with our attorney, Joe. He insists there's no court that will take our challenge, there's no point in lodging another protest. I tried to explain that the government is taking our land, our heritage, and he just stared across the desk and said "Yeah? What does that feel like, as a white man?"
I forgot that all his Coast Salish art isn't for show. It's a statement about what people who lived here used to do.
Off The Job #9 Ready to Quit
This Monday morning I was assigned to file the last of the expansion inventory. By Friday afternoon I was ready to quit my job. Quite the change, right?
Let me explain: The inventory documents for the expansion contain every possible piece of paperwork dealing with where the new wall will lie. That's maps, topographical analyses, and even census data. It turns out that this also includes all the paperwork to do with either buying out or kicking out every single person affected.
I had no idea we were doing this and, believe me, it's a lot of people. It looks like at least six thousand homes and I don't even know how many individual human beings that must be. The summary also shows how the new wall will pass through a reservation, before noting that all this also happened with our previous expansion.
Then, in the attached minutes from a review meeting, all these redacted ARDA management types are saying that none of this is a problem. That the government has done it countless times before. That they already have all the strategies ready to counter resistance. It turns out they share best practices for this stuff all the time.
And I feel like I've been naive all along, because of course that's true. The Zone is just one more example of something that I guess we've been experts in for a while now. It's a different sort of justification for the same kind of treatment, perpetuated again and again.
Well, I won't be part of it any more. I won't be a cog in that machine. While I don't know yet the best way to push back against all this, I'm sure as hell going to start by cutting ties. And if ARDA deems my basic, grad school legal skills good enough to help them with these efforts, maybe those same skills might just help those whose lives have been uprooted.