Chapter Text
Hello all!
I am picking up writing again with a little less restriction on my own mind. Using ZZZ, as I am for this story, I think allows for some creative liberties I wouldn't have in other genres. With that also being said, the ZZZ world is one with little information for the "how's" and "why's". I want to bridge the gap between other games/stories to help fill in the gaps of this one.
With that being said, this story will be using logic leaps with plenty of holes to help explain unknowns in the world I'd like to build. This story, much like ZZZ itself, will be inherently goofy. It's intended to be. I want you, the reader, and I to be able to laugh plenty while you read and I write. I will try and keep things as coherently logical as I can, but no promises. I have a feeling this story will turn out excellent and the world will be wonderful. No biases, of course ;).
It will probably be a slower burn story as I have plenty of story I'd like to tell. Feel free to dm me or leave comments if you have ideas you'd like to share. They may just make it into a bonus chapter! I'll speak more of those when we get there.
This work us also on FFnet and Wattpad under the same name if you'd like to use either of those places for reading ease.
Without further ado, have fun, enjoy the story, and mention if you have any questions, comments or concerns. I'll answer things within reason!
August 3rd, 2025
Tonopah, Arizona
Diary Entry #1
Hello everyone! Or rather, hello me.
I am trying something new. Something that's been recommended to me time and time again. I am going to attempt to keep a running journal.
It's a tool used to help a lot of things. Keep track of events, plans, important dates, and keep reality in check, amongst other things. The DARPA sponsored psychiatrist is the one who finally convinced me to try it. She said it would help keep my thoughts in order as I worked here.
Well, let me add some context to that statement.
Where is here? Here, as in where I stand today, is known officially as Site 17. It is a branch nuclear research base connected to the much larger Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station located in Tonopah, Arizona. It's roughly 60 or so miles away from the Phoenix metro area. Secluded enough you'd need intent to come visit and close enough that most of the working members could live within regular, urban society.
However, the key word in that paragraph is "officially". Site 17, as I hinted above, is anything but your normal run of the mill nuclear generating station. Site 17, and the entirety of the Palo Verde Nuclear Facility is owned and operated by Phoenix Energy Systems. An exceptionally boring and accurate description of what that company specializes in can be easily procured from reading the name of the company. They specialize in energy systems of course! Electricity, gas, coal, nuclear. Anything that needs power, Phoenix Energy Systems is one of the many that has you covered!
Apologies for that. I've been hanging around the salesmen too much, it seems. Feel like I'm trying to rope you into investing into the company (which isn't a bad idea! The company is up 14% in the last 25 years!). *This by no means is any sort of financial advice and I should not be liable to any decisions that you, the reader, decide to do with your money.
I must say the psychiatrist is right. This is an awfully fun experience! Imagining myself telling a story, written for those to read a day in the life of me! Thankfully no one does, because that would be horrifically embarrassing.
Ah suppose I led right into the next piece of background information that's important to know!
Who am I? A question with no limits and no right answer. I am whatever I want to be! A musician! A powerful businessman! The world's next great super spy! A guiding light in a world of darkness! The truth, unfortunately, is far more boring and mundane than I would have you believe.
I suppose that is the beauty of imagination, no? In my head, for a few moments, I am those things all wrapped into one. Those four people are me, and I, those four people. I suppose what is more shocking is that without knowing the information I am about to share, anyone picking up this book and reading these pages would believe that I am one, or all, of those things. Which I think is pretty cool. Even though those thoughts last all of maybe 10 more seconds before the next paragraph starts. I digress. Back to the topic at hand.
My name is Batman.
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Ok! Sorry! That was the last one! I promise ;).
My name is Vincent Vega Novus. This time I'm really not kidding. If the name "Vincent Vega" rings any bells to you, that's because it probably should. My father, the giant nerd that he is, won the coin toss and named me after one half of Pulp Fiction's superstar characters. Growing up in the early 2000s means I was called Vic or Vinny or Vega or anything else people could come up with. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me what was in the briefcase, I'd have probably like 12 dollars.
I am a true born and raised Arizonan. I speak fluent cactus, wear jeans in 110 degree heat that surely isn't legal to be standing in, and only drove 10 minutes from my home to attend Party Capital USA! Or as it is known everywhere else in the country: Arizona State University. The university is a sprawling, square mile masterpiece (monstrosity) with enough glass and concrete to make the ground hot enough to flash fry a burger.
Let me climb off my high horse before I get scared of heights. Arizona State served its purpose for me. I studied hard, partied harder, and somehow made it into the job I sit in today.
As you can probably guess, being a nerd runs in the family. I enjoyed sports and played them well enough. Well enough to get a partial scholarship to play on the ASU football team as the backup's backup quarterback. All of that was fine for me. I went into college with the knowledge that the extra money from sports meant that I didn't need to work and could focus on my schooling. Which again, was good enough for me.
I originally wanted to study cybersecurity. Something about the ether of the constantly moving ones and zeros called my name through a siren song and I was desperately heeding the call. Except reality hit me when I joined a coding course two levels above where I should've been (thank you counselor). I went from understanding the basics to reading hieroglyphics in 2 weeks. Naturally, just past the add/drop period for college courses. Suddenly I recognized the siren's call for what it was and switched courses…to nuclear engineering.
You must be thinking to yourself "Vinny, what could have possibly possessed you to make such a decision if you couldn't even code properly!" Well, remember that football part? Yeah? Great. You may then recognize that I left my brain somewhere on the 3:10 to Yuma.
Truthfully, the decision came rather easy. I think nukes are cool and I want to learn about them. Seriously, that was all of the brain power that was put into the decision. In saying that, I must also mention that I am proficient enough in math, sciences, reading (sometimes), writing (lol) and figuring things out. I mean you are reading this after I made it here aren't you? With a Master's no less?
I must apologize once again, it seems I must've resaddled my horse somewhere along the road. I feel I am giving a bad first impression. Let me tone down the flair just a bit to speed us through the important bits.
After graduating college, and with plenty of good marks, I tripped some wire somewhere along a database. My first job offer was here, with Phoenix Energy Systems, soon followed by other companies. They wanted me to begin work at a nuclear power plant monitoring, learning about, and studying nuclear energy and the power created from the splitting of atoms. Soon, however, I was clued into a little secret.
Nothing is as it seems.
An important lesson I learned very quickly while working here. "Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open." That was advice given to me by one of the senior workers here early in my tenure. Gruff, mountain of a man that looked more like he could throw cattle over his shoulder than work in a power plant.
That lesson, along with others, proved to be very useful.
Phoenix Energy Systems, as I would come to find out, is not a privately owned company. Well, technically it is, but it's also not. PES is owned and operated by members of Elemental Analysis Division (EAD) which is a branch company of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA for short. EAD specializes in studying material on earth or in space that are…odd.
EAD does everything from collecting samples of elements that are yet to be studied fully to checking out different energy production (such as hydrogen, etc.) to collecting matter from space that the CIA or FBI doesn't want on record to have touched. Things like weird asteroids, metals or aliens (can neither confirm nor deny) all fall under the EAD's branch.
Site 17 is one of the EAD and DARPA testing sites. I was "promoted" to part of this department after my quick learning during my tenure in the actual on-the-books style of business. Originally, it was very cool. I really liked the idea of being one of the government's top secret agents. Told secrets that I was never allowed to share. Originally, it was very cool. Originally as in a year ago.
Now? This job sucks. I hate it. Which is why I'm seeing a psychiatrist.
The job itself isn't hard. There's a monotonous tone of consistency that underlines every day's work. Wake-up, eat, go to work, do work, eat, more work, leave, go to sleep. That's it. All day, every day.
That's not entirely true. I do have some time to play video games, which is all the fun outside of work I really can do. I play plenty of games (remember that nerdy part?). Anything from Call of Duty, to Madden, to Elden Ring/Bloodborne, to Grand Theft Auto. I even dabble in games like Zenless Zone Zero once in a while. I mean, why not? I've seen enough Instagram ads of a shark, rat, and the female version of TF2's Pyro to be convinced.
Anyway, as I was saying, this job is exceptionally boring. My actual job is to record the effects of nuclear fission on random materials that are brought to us by people far higher on the totem pole. I'm not paid to ask what this random space metal is, just paid to see what happens in controlled environments of nuclear fission.
You want to hear God's honest truth? This place, Palo Verde, is really, really weird. Strange noises get made at night. Things move where there shouldn't be things at all. Something about this place is really wrong. This is what's caused me to see the psychiatrist. The material DARPA keeps bringing us? It keeps getting weirder and weirder. Originally it was only a few meteorite chunks made of mostly carbon and some old Soviet-era metal husks from satellites. Now though? Crystalline structures that do not form the way they should. Atom bonds all fucked up. Puss colored rocks with pores in them that seem to breathe. Rocks that have holes in them and glow blue but nobody knows why. Those ones are weird. They sing to you if you're too tired. Ask you to do things…
Or so I've heard. Those are the whispers amongst the halls. I've only seen one up close for a few minutes. Just enough to record some data and chart some notes. That's been it. No intimate contact with one.
Well I am writing with narration in a journal as though I'm writing a story someone will read. Suppose I haven't walked away from these space rocks unscathed either. Or is it the paranoia talking?
Oh, my phone vibrated. A text message on my work phone? This late at night?
"You must report to Site 17 Main Laboratory 1 at exactly 0500 hours."
Odd…That's really odd.
The clock now reads:
10:46 PM
Well I suppose now is as good a time as any. This has been Vincent Novus, signing off of journal entry #1.