T-009 Gravity room

Threshold Institute · Case file T-009

Number

T-009 in the catalogue

Kind

Room

Class

Class I: harmless while it is left alone

Found

Year 14, month 3, day 22

Where found

The archive room under the observation wing

Status

Unchanged since the breach; it does nothing to anyone who stays out

Now

At the lab and in the rift

Part

Part II: The rooms turn

Containment procedures

The archive is sealed behind a warning plate that bears its number and arrows, and its files are left where they lie. No one enters T-009 except on a rope held from outside, with a helmet and padding, and nothing is thrown into it. The pull is read through the door's hatch once a day. T-009 is placed in Class I: it does nothing to anyone who stays out of it.

Description

A room where down will not stay put. It pulls everything in it toward one of its walls at about half a walking pace: a walker against the pull goes slowly, and a runner gets through. Every six to ten seconds the pull turns to another of its four walls, with a deep creak a second before and a thud as it turns. It never pulls upward. It takes people, creatures and anything thrown across the room, and the dust in the air drifts the way it pulls. What lies on the floor stays where it fell: a file dropped in T-009 stays where it was dropped, while the clerk who dropped it is drawn away from it.

Discovery

On the twenty-second day of the third month of year 14 the archive clerk, Hans Berglund, was found pressed against the archive's east wall, among his files scattered on the floor. While the night guard watched from the door, the room creaked, and Berglund was drawn along the floor to the south wall, slowly, his hands flat on the boards; the files did not move. He had been in the room since the evening, drawn from wall to wall, and he could not stand when he was pulled out. Tomas Rehn went in on his rope (see T-008), was drawn to the east wall at a walk, and ran back to the door against the pull when it turned. He timed the turns over nine days and found no pattern but their length: never less than six seconds, never more than ten. Dr Selma Kader, who had come to the Institute for T-001 and had spent twelve years unable to measure it, measured T-009. It was the first time the Institute could tie a room to T-001 with a number. Kader had come to the Institute in year 2 from the state's geophysical survey, and in all those years every instrument she had brought to the chamber had given her a reading from elsewhere. In T-009 the dust in her lamp beam gave her a bearing.

Addenda

Addendum T-009-A

test log, Dr S. Kader, Year 14, month 4

Day 2. Pull east at 06:00. Creak, then south, eight seconds after. Creak, then west, seven seconds after. The files on the floor have not moved since month 3.

Day 5. The dust in the lamp beam drifts with the pull and turns with it, so the pull can be read from the hatch without anyone going in.

Day 9. Set against the burn log (see T-006): on the days of fastest regrowth the turns come nearer six seconds than ten. Whatever T-001 does, it does to the building as well as to the chamber floor.

Day 9. Not upward. Never upward. I do not know why that comforts me.

Addendum T-009-B

note

Kader's paper on T-009 was the first the Institute did not burn. Rehn's survey went on, room by room, with chalk and a count. The next room he found did not move the people in it. It moved them somewhere else (see T-010).

Previous fileT-008 Dark roomPart II: The rooms turn Next fileT-010 Elsewhere doorPart II: The rooms turn

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Dr Selma Kader and Hans Berglund.
• Places: The Institute’s site, The containment chamber and The observation wing.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 14, month 3, day 22. Found in the archive room under the observation wing, where the clerk Hans Berglund was found pressed against the east wall among his scattered files and, while the night guard watched, drawn along the floor to the south wall. Tomas Rehn went in on his rope and timed the turns over nine days, and Dr Selma Kader measured it: the first room we could tie to T-001 with a number.

A sealed room on the lab's lower level where down will not stay put. It pulls all in it toward one wall at half a walking pace: walking against it is slow, a sprint gets through.

Every 6 to 10 seconds the pull turns to another of its four walls, with a creak 1 second before. It takes people, creatures, animals and thrown grenades; what lies on the floor stays where it fell. Found behind a warning plate that bears its code and arrows.

Status: unchanged since the breach; it does nothing to anyone who stays out.

Today it is found at the lab and in the rift.

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