The Technicians

During the course of the investigation into the Z+ Machine, the eight technician's complaints of visual and audio hallucinations, unexplained temperature variations, time disorientation and severe nausea when away from the machine were looked at and a full set of independent medical tests were performed.
It was discovered that they each suffered from serious damage at a genetic level (
telomeric shortening). This resulted in a rapid onset of various aging-related diseases which intensified after the machine was shut down. No scientific correlation has been found between the Z+ Machine and the onset of the conditions. But it has been noted that the symptoms appeared to reduce dramatically when in the vicinity of the Nothing Containment Field (NCF). When the Research Councils UK terminated the experimentation phase, the technicians permanently affected by telomeric shortening volunteered to stay behind to maintain the NCF in the hope that a permanent solution could be found for their condition. It has recently been shown that aural stimulation can help alleviate the symptoms of telomeric shortening damage, and it could well be some of the audio frequencies being sucked into the NCF which is actually soothing the Technicians.

Unfortunately the last round of Governmental funding cuts in the Science sector called for a reduction in staffing levels from eight down to six, but before the Technicians to be cut were selected, all the technicians voted unanimously to reduce their individual wages thus allowing enough freedom in the budget to keep the two 'extra' technicians close to the machine as an act of solidarity.

Having now worked on a second, similar, Containment Field at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, it was discovered that the signature energies of the field were completely different and that the CERN NCF had no measurable effect on recovering the health of the Nothing Technicians. It is now believed that the Technicians are ‘tied in’ on a sub-molecular level with only the UK Nothing Containment Field, moreover, as the NCF’s signature energy is slowly changing in time, the effectiveness of the Nothing Machine Therapy Recordings reduces, as they reflect a snapshot of the energy at a certain point in a constantly evolving energy map.