The Institute's site

Threshold Institute · Site record

Name

The Institute's site

In the game

The lab, a raid site

The Institute stood over the state's deep mine shaft. When a shaft crew found the rift in year 1, the ministry closed the mine within the week, burnt the mining company's records and gave the site to the engineer Ilse Varga. She had the containment chamber poured first, then the sealed level dug around it, and only then the buildings above (T-001). The catalogue calls the whole of it the lab (T-001).

Above ground stood the hall, where the names of the dead were put on a memorial wall (T-013), the observation wing, built in year 8 (T-007), and the yard, where the mirror was brought down in year 9 (T-007) and where the key was tried on a padlock in year 39 (T-041). An old firing range served Mara Okafor for the training of the survey teams (T-023). The pollution reached the grounds in year 46 (T-054).

The Directorate ordered the site abandoned in year 48, after the widening failed. Of 214 staff on the books, 131 were out of the gate by the ninth day (T-055). The warden still patrols the level below (T-055).

Parts of the site

• The shaft. The state's deep mine shaft, 1,140 metres down, where a shaft crew broke into the cavity that held the rift.
• The containment chamber. The concrete room poured round the rift before anything else was built, with one door that opened only from its anteroom.
• The sealed level. The level dug round the containment chamber, where the Institute held what came through, and where the rooms themselves began to turn.
• The cells. The cell block of the sealed level: standard cells built to the size of a rift stalker, one reinforced cell, and the sealed object cells.
• The observation wing. The wing built in year 8 so that the cells could be watched through one-way mirrors, with the archive room under it and an anteroom of its own.
• The service tunnels. The unlit tunnels dug under the sealed level after year 2, where the shade took a maintenance crew of four in year 4.

Found here

The files that name this place in their line on where the threshold was found:

File	Found	Where found
T-001 The rift	Year 1, month 1, day 1	The bottom of the state’s deep mine shaft, 1,140 metres down, under what became the lab

Named in containment procedures

The files whose containment procedures name this place, to hold a threshold here, to keep one away, or as a rule for the place:

File	Class	Found
T-011 Bigger inside	Class I	Year 15, month 8, day 2
T-013 Cold room	Class I	Year 18, month 12, day 5

Also named in

The last column says where in each file.

Part I: The tear

File	Found	Where named
T-004 Shade	Year 4, month 2, day 11	Addendum T-004-B
T-006 Growth	Year 7, month 6, day 9	Addendum T-006-B
T-007 Mirror	Year 9, month 3, day 14	Discovery, Addendum T-007-A, Addendum T-007-B

Part II: The rooms turn

File	Found	Where named
T-008 Dark room	Year 11, month 5, day 6	Discovery, Addendum T-008-C
T-009 Gravity room	Year 14, month 3, day 22	Addendum T-009-A
T-010 Elsewhere door	Year 14, month 11, day 3	Discovery, Addendum T-010-B

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

File	Found	Where named
T-023 Listening field	Year 26, month 11, day 2	Addendum T-023-3

Part III: Going through (the objects)

File	Found	Where named
T-041 Skeleton Key	Year 39, month 5, day 22	Addendum T-041-A

Part V: The widening

File	Found	Where named
T-055 Warden	Year 48, month 2, day 9	Addendum T-055-4

In the journal

These 3 finds lie here, in full. Reading any one of them writes the step The rift torn open into your journal.

Note · The Institute's site

Director's memo

To all staff. Year 47, month 7, day 2. The contamination from the launch site has reached the coast. The usual measures have failed.

The mask brought out of T-001 last month keeps the poison out of whoever wears it. It is the first proof that the rift holds an answer.

Dr Rehn has read the lost expedition's log again. What Anneli Sund's team found deep in the rift in year 32, and would not leave, is the one thing that can kill the source.

The board has approved the widening of T-001, to reach it and to turn what lies beyond against the source. Prepare the chamber. No one leaves the site until it is done.

Terminal · The Institute's site

Chamber log, widening

Widening of T-001 by the directive of Year 47, month 7, day 2, after the mask (T-054). Aim: reach what the lost expedition found, the one thing that can kill the source.

Year 48, month 1, day 30. Widening stage one: aperture doubled. Readings stable. Field team reports a cold wind through the opening.

Stage two: aperture well past projection and still growing on its own. Containment field at full power.

Stage three: field failure on the sealed level. Cell doors opening across the site. Lockdown called.

Log continues automatically. No operator input since the lockdown.

Recording · The Institute's site

Research dictation

[A man's voice, close to the microphone.] Rehn, research. Notes on the samples from the launch site, continued. Year 47, month 7.

Nothing of ours touches it. Fire, cold and every agent we tried leave it as it was. The mask from the rift keeps it out of the lungs, but it does not kill it.

I have read the lost expedition's log again: Lask's last page, and Anneli's own page from the camp where the mask was found. In year 32 she found something deep in the rift that was made to be carried out, and she would not leave it. She did not know what it was for. I think I do now.

It is the one thing that can kill the source. It still lies where her team was lost. The Directorate will widen the rift to reach it; I asked for one more team instead.