Codex Transportica

Irresistible Force Mark One from the “Blocks of Paradox” series.

Impregnable. Unstoppable. Incomprehensible. One day it was just there on the horizon: the first of the Blocks of Paradox (as they were very quickly termed by the popular press) currently remains very much an unsolved mystery. What we do know is that the block is, to all intents and purposes, unstoppable. Propelled from beneath by some unidentified mechanism (subterranean photography reveals nothing), the block moves at a steady 5 mph (8 kph) in a direction exactly 90 degrees West of True North, thus travelling 120 miles (approx 190 kilometres) per day.

At first viewed as a novel item of interest, and assumed to be the toy of some small dictator with a large iron mine and a useful slave-labour force, the block was largely left alone as it ground its way across the Kalahari Desert and simply reported casually as an item of interest in the news. However, this began to change as the block approached the first settlements on the periphery of the Kalahari.

Approached, and then consumed.

As the block moved past the settlement it was revealed that houses were not just crushed – they were completely eradicated. This was bad enough, but the cause of much greater concern was that evacuees discovered that not everyone seemed to have escaped, and many swore that the block seemed to pause in its progress for a short time.

Of course by now it has been empirically proven that this is indeed the case. Whether by accident or intent, a number of people have found themselves in the path of the block and been unable to escape. In each case the block does halt its progress for a time related to the number of victims involved.

It was at this point that the block gained its title as the Block of Moloch: a thing which demands costly sacrifices, for it was soon realised that as the block encroaches on more important structures it has the capability to bring utter devastation. Theories abound – will enough sacrifices halt the block completely? Will it ever be “satisfied?” And if so, who to sacrifice for the greater good?

Impervious to all attacks that have been tried to date, it is also almost completely resistant to X-rays and other forms of radiation. Shadowy, poor-quality images do reveal that the block is hollow and contains a myriad of smaller interconnected blocks within. When these images were viewed in series, it was revealed that these smaller blocks are in constant motion themselves. Whether this is related to the propulsion mechanism, or is entirely unrelated is yet to be discovered.

A good idea of the scale of this entity can be gauged from the illustration: note the volunteer military unit in place on the top of the object, confirming the entity’s dimensions as 360 feet on a side. Whether this value is special in any way is again yet to be determined, and for now the Block of Moloch is an enigma which cannot be ignored.