T-016 The watchers

Threshold Institute · Case file T-016

Number

T-016 in the catalogue

Kind

Room

Class

Class I: harmless while it is left alone

Found

Year 23, month 4, day 27

Where found

The anteroom of 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 anteroom is sealed with the figures in it and numbered. They cannot be moved, cut or burnt. Staff cross T-016 only in pairs, and a guard posted to the wing is moved off it after a month. The rule written for the survey teams from T-016 stands: if a thing does not move while you look at it, do not stop looking (see T-027).

Description

Six figures, grey, the height of a person, without faces, standing still. They never take a step. They turn their heads: whoever crosses the room finds every figure's face turned toward them, following them across. A round fired into one does not mark it or stir it. When the room is empty, their faces turn toward T-001's chamber.

Discovery

On the twenty-seventh day of the fourth month of year 23 the morning guard opened the anteroom of the observation wing and found the six figures in it. No one had seen them come in; the wing had been locked and watched all night. Tomas Rehn and Mara Okafor's team watched them for nine days, by lamp and by camera, and they never moved but to turn their heads. Two guards asked to be moved off the wing in the first week; a third, Bo Ringdahl, fired at them. Dr Selma Kader set a camera in the empty room and found that the faces turned to the chamber whenever no one was there. The Institute learnt only that they watched, and that the watching came from T-001. Nothing about them harmed anyone. They were held all the same, for what they did to the guards who stood with them, and placed in Class I, since the room does nothing to anyone who stays out of it.

Addenda

Addendum T-016-A

interview with guard Bo Ringdahl, Year 23, month 5, day 4. Interviewer: Director H. Lind

Lind: Why did you fire?

Ringdahl: Nine days they looked at me. Every round I walked, six faces with no faces on them, turning with me. They never did anything. That was it, Director. You wait nine days for a thing to do something, and it never does, and you start to think it is waiting for you to stop watching it.

Lind: Did you stop watching it?

Ringdahl: No, Director. I am not a fool.

Addendum T-016-B

note, Director H. Lind, Year 23, month 6

T-016 was the last of the rooms that turned before the Institute went through. In the same year the ministry granted the means I had asked for since T-014. Tomas Rehn was named to lead the first survey beyond T-001 (see T-017), and Mara Okafor to train his team. Her last order for them came from T-016, and the teams learnt why (see T-027).

Previous fileT-015 Replay roomPart II: The rooms turn Next fileT-017 Shifting landPart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Mara Okafor, Dr Selma Kader, Director Hanne Lind and Bo Ringdahl.
• Places: The containment chamber and The observation wing.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 23, month 4, day 27. Found in the anteroom of the observation wing, when the morning guard opened it and found six figures standing in it; the wing had been locked and watched all night. Tomas Rehn and Mara Okafor's team watched them for nine days by lamp and by camera, and two guards asked to be moved off the wing in the first week.

A sealed room on the lab's lower level where pale, featureless figures stand about the floor. None has been seen to move, but their heads turn slowly to follow whoever comes in, from the doorway on.

A mind in their sight wears down the longer they look, as in the rift, and stays worn once out of it until sleep or home. Its doorway is not part of their sight. One of them always looks away, and beside it the others' stare loses its hold. Found behind a warning plate that bears its code and an open eye.

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

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