Stories from the Federal Bureau of Control’s paranormal headquarters
The mysterious, windowless, apocalypse-proof building known by its address, 33 Thomas Street, is the subject of much speculation. Formerly known as the AT&T Long Lines Building, it is assumed to be one of the NSA’s mass surveillance hubs codenamed TITANPOINTE. In an episode of the X-Files, cellphone data is used to copy consciousness and upload it into a virtual heaven hosted on servers in the Long Lines Building. However, virtual heaven ends up like digital slavery.
In the video game Control, the Federal Bureau of Control’s paranormal headquarters, where the inside is bigger than the outside, is based on 33 Thomas Street. The FBC is a secret government agency that investigates and contains AWEs, or Altered World Events, which are supernatural phenomena affected by the collective unconscious. The FBC also fights against the Hiss, an entity that corrupts reality, which they accidentally let invade through the HQ’s portal into the Astral Plane.
So, is there really a simulation or a portal inside the building at 33 Thomas Street? Perhaps these concepts are one and the same. All you need to do to create a portal into the collective unconscious is give everyone a cell phone that feeds them the same ideas. The real portal is the mind, or the imagination, and what we let into it eventually comes back out in some way, shape, or form.
Ironically, the FBC from Control was actually based on the SCP Foundation, a fictional secret organization and online collaborative writing project responsible for creating creepypastas and other forms of digital folklore. Memes can become hyper-real, and something fake can have very real effects, such as the Slender Man stabbing.