ANOMIA: Listening Post K-7

Somewhere north. Listening Post K-7. 1977. You were flown in hooded. You don't know where you are, only what the post is called and what Control expects of you: find the signals, log the signals, keep the stove lit, and stay indoors. ANOMIA is a one-room, first-person horror game about listening. You are the replacement operator of a three-metre hut on the ice, alone with a radar scope, an antenna you turn by hand, a reel-to-reel deck and a teletype that only ever speaks to you in capitals. The last operator, Varga, left before relief arrived. Varga also left tapes. THE WORK Every shift, Control sends a quota. Out on the scope, the contacts drift in from the dark: whistlers off the aurora, pulsars, telemetry chirps, code. Some of them sound like a choir that has forgotten the song. Find the blip. The radar sweep gives you a bearing. Turn to it. Crank the antenna until the scope locks. Record it. Hold steady on the reel-to-reel while the tape runs. Clean it. Flip the filter switches until the noise falls away and the signal comes through. File it. Natural, man-made or unknown.…