The Failed Experiment

While Mr Oswald's insurgency continued to strike fear into Telekon's employees, another interesting occurrence was taking place, in Facility A17 at Beta Complex, which was located about 250 miles away from the capital, several employees were assembling a brand new batch of T.E.Es or Telekon Electronic Experiments, these were specially designed machines that had unique abilities which varied from being able to walk through walls to having the power to electrocute things by touching them. Over 3 million units had been assembled over the past three decades, and they were built for multiple purposes including increasing Peiriant's army numbers and helping boost production at conversion chambers.

As you would expect, these machines did have powers that could kill a person quite easily, but fortunately for the employees of Telekon they were all fitted with a fail-safe that would prevent them from targeting their creators, and all of the T.E.Es were monitored and inspected regularly, so absolutely nothing would go wrong. Alongside being created to test out new technology, T.E.Es were also created to aid in the production of resources such as Photon Fluid and a unique material called Lenzium, which is an incredibly useful, but highly unstable metal that could generate a powerful magnetic field, it is used to create Railpod motors, as well as Photon Fluid conversion chambers, the material has played a key part in the technological evolution of Cybrion and more importantly Peiriant itself.

But anyway, back to the T.E.Es, even with so many units being assembled and subsequently boosting Telekon's profits and Peiriant's economy, one thing other than Mr Oswald still struck fear into the employees and made them shiver in fear when someone mentioned its name, that thing went by the name of Faex, short for Failed Experiment, and there was one very good reason why it failed.

Sometime in 1983, construction began on a new facility at the Beta Complex, this facility would specialise in the creation of exoskeletons for T.E.Es, however, it also was constructed to conduct tests to study the effects, potential uses and dangers of Lenzium on different materials. The project was delayed several times by the Peiriant government due to safety concerns and the fact there had been reports that just a small amount of Lenzium could kill a person if it was not handled properly. But Mr Oswald wasn't put off by the dangers of this newly discovered resource, he wanted to create more jobs so that the local economy could thrive off this new business.

Later that same year, T.E.E Batch 23 began production, and this batch started exactly as you would expect, they all passed the first round of inspections and most of them did well when it came to the tests. At the same time as the production of this new batch of machines, studies were being carried out on Lenzium samples found at the nearby mines, be sure to remember that, because it will play a vital part in what happened further down the line...

At first, the tests were being carried out with small samples to reduce the risk of possible poisoning, this was a mandatory order given by the Peiriant government, as concerns about the negative effects of Lenzium started to rise at an exponential rate, this, in turn, prompted Telekon to make drastic changes to its testing protocols, including cutting off the testing areas from the main facility to avoid contamination. Mr Oswald did everything he could to make the facility as safe as possible, and for a while, he succeeded in doing so.

However one day, an unnamed employee decided to start experimenting with larger Lenzium samples, he did this to see if he could turn the resource into a safe material, the reason being he wanted to create a sustainable resource that could be used to strengthen T.E.E chassis, but to avoid getting caught by the authorities and a possible prison sentence, he did all of his experiments in secret, under cover of darkness. To gain access to the samples, he needed to somehow get to the Lenzium testing site without being caught, so every night, he would catch an underground Railpod that was usually meant to transport Lenzium supplies to the testing site. Once he was done, he would come back to the main facility and conduct as many experiments as possible until the new working day began, he would then hide the supplies in a small crate and lock it away, for the longest time it seemed to him that his scheme was foolproof, and as a result, he continued to push his luck and the boundaries of the complex's safety precautions. But, this unnamed employee soon discovered that this material was not what it seemed to be.

Over the following years, the complex would experience many problems, most of them caused by this strange and misunderstood resource, minor incident after minor incident would mainly affect the testing facility in all sorts of ways, questions were asked regarding the safety of the building, but Telekon needed the money to boost the industrial sector of the city's economy, so they ignored the warning signs once again and kept testing and manufacturing, however, it would only take one major incident to conceive the Failed Experiment, and this incident has gone down as one of the worst disasters in the planet's history.

On that fateful day in 1988, it started just like any other day at a Telekon facility, as usual, substantial profits were being made when it came to trading, this was exactly what Oswald wanted, he was at the communications room, looking at one of the monitors, "This is going surprisingly well" he exclaimed, "Especially with what has happened here over the last six months" but little did Oswald and his employees know that things were about to go downhill.

"Warning, Lenzium quantities detected" the monitor displayed, "That's odd, how did Lenzium get into the facility, isn't the testing site supposed to be blocked off from the rest of the complex?" One of the employees was tasked with closing off the main valves of the facility that reportedly now had huge Lenzium quantities flowing through them, chaos ensued, and one employee seamlessly had fled the scene, it was then discovered that one of the nearby mine's pipes had broke and as a result allowed Lenzium dust, which was highly dangerous, to get into to the facility's ventilation pipes, "We're in big trouble" Oswald proclaimed, "I don't want this to escalate further, the only thing we can do is lock the facility down". And so he proceeded to lock down the entire building. He was optimistic that this would do the trick, but he was also worried that something even more catastrophic was going to happen, and he was right.

Just a few minutes later, clouds of Lenzium dust flooded into the facility and every single employee inside made a run for the back door, Oswald glanced at the CCTV cameras just before he went out of the building, as he walked away from the monitors, he saw something abnormal, it looked a bit like a T.E.E unit, but instead of a shining silver exoskeleton, it was now jet black with a bit of red, its eyes were flaming crimson, and it looked like it had all of its emotions suppressed, except vengeance, Oswald stared at this being, and in the process, he realised he may or may not have created a mechanical monstrosity "What have I done?" Oswald thought to himself as he headed out of the building. Minutes later, the testing area was reduced to rubble in a huge explosion, quickly followed by part of the fuel tank storage bay bursting into flames. More could be said about the horrific things that happened, but to sum it all up, it was a catastrophe to end all catastrophes.

The events of that day left a mental scar on Oswald's life that he never quite recovered from, the visions of employees getting burned by the dust traumatised him whenever they occurred. he was also worried about the malign machine that had been created that day, now nicknamed "The Failed Experiment" which further pushed him to his limits. A few months later, following reports that several people had been gunned down in a small rural part of the capital, Oswald, who was Head of Manufacturing at the time of the incident, spoke for the first time about Faex.

"It has been quite a tragic few days for this part of Peiriant, my thoughts are with the victims, and we at Telekon will work with the C.P.D to try and find this potential mass murderer, I must reassure everyone that this killer is an emotionless machine, conceived by the horrifying events of last month, in which 41 employees unfortunately perished, I must also be the one to tell you that this machine is a monster, a monster that could kill anyone of you, I must warn you, this machine will take weeks, if not months to catch, so that means that consequently, more people could lose their lives to this machine, and if anyone has any form of evidence of a murder then please send it to the C.P.D, it's the only way we can stop this thing from killing even more people, thank you, and stay safe out there"